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Rich Croquettes

Rice croquettes are fried cylinders made from boiled rice, milk, butter, sugar, cinnamon or nutmeg, salt, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,137 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Rich Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice base

  1. Heat the milk with the butter and sugar in a saucepan until it boils.

  2. Stir in the boiled rice, cinnamon or nutmeg, and salt. Mix well and bring the mixture to a boil again.

  3. Remove the saucepan from heat and add the beaten egg. Mix until the egg is fully incorporated.

Shape and fry

  1. Transfer the mixture to a plate and let it cool.

  2. Form the cooled mixture into cylinders.

  3. Fry the cylinders in hot butter until golden brown.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Provides liquid that cooks the rice into a moist, creamy mixture.
Boiled rice
Forms the bulk of the croquette and gives it its body.
Egg
Binds the mixture so it holds its cylinder shape when cooled and fried.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the outside brown during frying.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the exterior brown.

The step that matters

Cooling before shaping. The mixture must cool enough to firm up before it is formed, otherwise it stays soft and sticky and will not hold its cylinder shape in the hot butter.

“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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