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Croquettes of Ham and Rice

Croquettes of ham and rice are fried balls made with cooked ham, rice, butter, white sauce, egg, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Croquettes of Ham and Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Dry the cooked rice well and chop it finely.

  2. Sauté the shallot in butter until lightly browned.

  3. Add the ham, rice, and a pinch of sage; season with salt and pepper, and stir until hot.

  4. Mix in the white sauce and egg yolk, stirring until the mixture thickens.

  5. Spread the mixture on a plate and let it cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape into balls or corks, coat with egg and breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry in hot fat until nicely browned.

  3. Drain well and serve garnished with fried parsley.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Shallot + sagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together181 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked rice
Forms the bulk of the filling and, once dried and chopped, holds its shape when cooled and fried.
Cooked ham
Provides the main savoury flavour and meaty body of the filling.
White sauce
Binds the filling and adds moisture so the mixture can be shaped.
Egg yolk
Helps thicken and bind the filling as it stirs over heat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the shallot brown lightly.
Whole egg
Coats the shaped croquettes so breadcrumbs adhere and form a crisp, browned shell.

The step that matters

Cool the filling before shaping. A warm, moist mixture is soft and sticky, so it can break apart or slip through the breadcrumbs. Cooling lets the starch and egg set so the croquettes hold their shape in hot fat.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, rice, butter, sauce, shallot, parsley, pepper):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, rice, butter, sauce, shallot, parsley, pepper. 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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