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Veal Rissoles

A savory dish of minced veal mixed with bacon or ham, breadcrumbs, anchovy essence, spices, parsley, beaten egg, and gravy, formed into balls and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Veal Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mince the cold veal very finely.

  2. Mix in one-fourth of its bulk in cooked bacon or ham and bread crumbs rubbed through a colander.

  3. Add three or four drops of essence of anchovy, a little pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  4. Stir in finely-chopped parsley and moisten the mixture with beaten egg and a little gravy.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into walnut-sized balls, lightly flour them, and fry until golden brown.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Anchovy + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,702 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold veal
Forms the main body of the rissoles and gives them their meaty flavor.
Cooked bacon or ham
Adds savory fat and flavor that keeps the minced meat from drying out.
Bread crumbs
Absorbs moisture and binds the mixture so the balls hold their shape.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture together and helps it set during frying.
Gravy
Moistens the mixture, adding juiciness and savory depth.

The step that matters

Form the mixture into walnut-sized balls, lightly flour them, and fry until golden brown.. The mixture is soft and held together mainly by egg and crumbs. Uniform small balls heat evenly, and a light flour coating helps them brown and keeps the outside from sticking or breaking apart as it fries.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, bread, anchovy, pepper, egg):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits less well
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, bread, anchovy, pepper, 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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