Name: Rissoles of Canned Meat
Ingredients: ½ pound canned meat; ½ pound flour; 4 ounces clarified dripping; salt; pepper; a few sprigs dried herbs; 1 egg; 2 ounces vermicelli or bread crumbs; clarified dripping (for frying)

Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rissoles of Canned Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Heat 1 pound of clarified dripping in a saucepan, being careful not to burn it.
In a bowl, combine ½ pound of flour, a pinch of salt, and 4 ounces of clarified dripping.
Rub the dripping into the flour until it resembles a fine powder.
Add a little cold water and mix into a stiff paste.
Flour a board and turn the paste out onto it.
Open the canned meat and remove the fat from the portion needed.
Take ½ pound of meat, scrape off as much jelly as possible, and chop it finely.
Rub a small bunch of dried herbs into a powder, keeping the stalks for soup flavoring.
Sprinkle the herbs, a little pepper, salt, and a bit of flour over the meat.
Roll out the paste as thin as possible with a rolling pin.
Cut the paste into rounds using a floured cutter, slightly larger than a teacup top.
Place some meat in the center of each round of paste.
Beat the egg in a plate and use it to seal the edges of the rounds.

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.

Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Brown Bread461 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

Meat Croquettes52 recipes

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Rissoles of Canned Meat