Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Rice Croquettes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mixture
Mix the boiled rice with butter to moisten.
Add the beaten eggs and mace, if using.
Alternatively, substitute grated cheese for the eggs.
Shape and fry
Shape the mixture into croquettes.
Fry the croquettes until golden brown.
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.
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Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Rice + cheesetop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together942 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Rice + macetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together932 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Boiled rice
- Forms the bulk of the croquettes and gives them their body.
- Eggs
- Bind the rice together, as their proteins set when heated.
- Butter
- Moistens the rice and adds richness and help with browning.
- Grated cheese
- Adds flavour and helps bind the mixture in place of eggs.
The step that matters
Shaping the mixture into croquettes. The rice needs enough moisture and binding from the eggs or cheese to hold its shape. If the mixture is too loose, the croquettes can fall apart in the hot fat, so the mixture should be moist and firm enough to form before frying.
Swap the mace
The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, egg, butter, cheese):
- Nutmegfits better
- Capersfits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, egg, butter, cheese. 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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