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Rissole Soup

A soup made with boiled meat, broth, and meatballs formed from meat, breadcrumbs, onion, parsley, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Rissole Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the stock

  1. Remove the fat from the top of the cold stock.

  2. Add the boiling water to the stock with the bones and remaining meat; boil slowly for nearly an hour.

Make the rissoles

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped meat, bread crumbs, onion, parsley, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and beaten egg to make a force‑meat mixture.

  2. Flour your hands and shape the mixture into round balls.

  3. Roll the balls in flour and place them in a floured pie dish, ensuring they do not touch.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200 °C) oven until crusted over, then let cool.

Finish the soup

  1. Strain the soup and add desired seasoning; heat to a boil.

  2. Gently drop in the rissoles and heat for three minutes without boiling.

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. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked meat
Forms the body of the rissoles and adds savoury flavour to the mixture.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture together so the rissoles hold their round shape.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and soften the mixture, giving the rissoles a tender texture.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it mingles with the meat mixture.

The step that matters

Gently drop in the rissoles and heat for three minutes without boiling.. Boiling vigorously can break up the delicate, egg-bound rissoles and make them fall apart in the soup. Gentle heat sets them through while keeping their shape.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, bread, parsley, pepper, nutmeg, egg, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, parsley, pepper, nutmeg, egg, flour. 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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