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Dessert

Rice Croquettes

Rice croquettes are fried rice cakes made with butter, sugar, milk, water, lemon rind, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Rice Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Wash the rice thoroughly and place it in a saucepan.

  2. Pour the hot milk and water over the rice and bring to a boil.

  3. Cook until the rice is soft, about 30 minutes.

Shape and coat

  1. Add the butter, sugar, and grated lemon rind; mix well.

  2. Spread the mixture on a large dish to dry.

  3. Shape the mixture into pear shapes.

  4. Roll each croquette in egg, then in bread crumbs, and let them stand for 20 minutes.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in boiling lard until cinnamon brown and serve hot.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

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

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Its starch swells and sets as it cools, giving the mixture enough firmness to hold a shape.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, leaving the cooked rice soft and creamy.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the cooked mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the outside brown when fried.
Egg (in the method)
Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs stick evenly to each croquette.
Bread crumbs (in the method)
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Fry in boiling lard until cinnamon brown. Hot fat sets the crumb coating quickly, which limits oil absorption. If the fat is too cool, the croquettes turn greasy; if it is too hot, the outside browns before the centre warms through.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, butter, sugar, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, sugar, milk. 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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