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Rice and Chicken Cutlets

Rice and Chicken Cutlets are fried patties made from cooked rice, ham, chicken, onion, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Rice and Chicken Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the rice in the stock until tender.

  2. Pound the cooked rice with the cooked onion, salt, and pepper in a mortar.

  3. Pound the cold ham and chicken separately until fine.

  4. Combine the rice mixture with the ham and chicken, and form into cutlets.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each cutlet in beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the cutlets in hot oil until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with a sharp sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Rice + chickentop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rice
Cooked and pounded, it binds the mixture and gives the cutlets a soft, cohesive body.
Egg
Beaten egg coats the cutlets and helps the bread crumbs adhere and set during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when the cutlets are fried.
Ham and chicken
Provide the main protein and savoury flavour of the cutlets.
Onion
Cooked in butter, it adds sweetness and aroma to the rice mixture.

The step that matters

Frying the cutlets in hot oil. If the oil is not hot enough, the crumb coating absorbs oil and turns greasy before it browns, and the cutlet may not set firmly. Hot oil browns the crust quickly while the inside heats through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, butter, pepper, ham, chicken, egg, bread):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, pepper, ham, chicken, egg, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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