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Chicken Rissoles

A puff pastry dish filled with minced chicken, cheese, and herbs, poached then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Chicken Rissoles

Oven, in the book's wordsA fairly brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a fairly brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Prepare puff pastry without sugar.

  2. Mix in grated cheese, onion juice, parsley, pepper, and salt.

  3. Blend in minced chicken until well combined.

  4. Form the mixture into balls or large spoonfuls.

Poach and bake

  1. Poach the balls in clear stock until cooked.

  2. Arrange the poached balls on a dish.

  3. Sprinkle the arranged balls with grated cheese.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

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

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

  2. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Cheese + chickentop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,936 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Provides a light, flaky pastry structure that encloses the filling.
Cooked chicken
Forms the main body of the filling, giving it substance and bulk.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the topping brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until browned. Baking at high heat sets the surface and browns the topping. Underbaking leaves it pale and soft, while overbaking dries the filling and toughens the pastry.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, onion, pepper, chicken):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, onion, pepper, chicken. 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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