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Butter Beans Rissoles

A savory patty made from butter beans, mashed potatoes, onion, herbs, and breadcrumbs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Butter Beans Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the butter beans in water overnight.

  2. Boil the soaked beans in enough water until tender.

  3. Mash the beans or pass them through a nut mill.

Make the patties

  1. Fry the chopped onion in the butter until soft.

  2. Mix the mashed beans with the fried onion, mashed potatoes, herbs, and seasoning.

  3. Form the mixture into small rissoles and roll them in breadcrumbs.

Bake

  1. Place the rissoles on a buttered baking tray and dot with a few bits of butter.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Beans + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  4. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter beans
Form the bulk of the patty, giving it body and a soft, starchy texture when mashed.
Cold mashed potatoes
Add starch and binding so the mixture holds its shape when formed.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma once softened in butter.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and helps the outside of the patties brown in the oven.
Breadcrumbs
Form a dry coating that crisps and browns during baking.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. The patties are mostly cooked beans and potato, so they need enough oven heat to brown the crumb coating and dry the surface. Taking them out too early leaves them pale and soft.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, potato, onion):

  1. Sesamefits about as well
  2. Beansthe original
  3. Peanutfits about as well
  4. Chickpeafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, potato, onion. 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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