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Rissoles, Fish

A fried patty made from shredded cooked fish mixed with sauce, breadcrumbs, egg, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rissoles, Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine the shredded cooked fish with the leftover sauce.

  2. Add pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

  3. Mix in the bread crumbs and the beaten egg until well combined.

  4. Form the mixture into small rissoles.

Fry and serve

  1. Coat each rissole in egg and then in bread crumbs.

  2. Heat oil in a pan and fry the rissoles until golden brown.

  3. Serve garnished with 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the rissoles.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the rissoles hold their shape.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and helps the coating set during frying.

The step that matters

Frying the rissoles until golden brown. Frying in enough hot oil browns the crumb coating through the Maillard reaction and sets the egg, forming a crisp outer layer that holds the rissole together. Oil that is too cool lets the rissoles soak up grease and fall apart.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, sauce, pepper, bread, egg):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, sauce, pepper, bread, egg. 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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