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Rissoles in Paste

A pastry filled with pounded cold meat and gravy, topped with egg yolk and vermicelli, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,432 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rissoles in Paste

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Pound the cold meat until fine.

  2. Thicken the gravy with cream or butter and add a little coarse sea salt.

  3. Mix the meat with the gravy.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the pastry dough and cut it into 4‑inch squares.

  2. Place some meat mixture on each square and fold into a triangle.

  3. Press the edges together to seal.

  4. Brush the tops with egg yolk and sprinkle with vermicelli.

  5. Fry in hot oil until light 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. Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

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

  2. Meat + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,248 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Forms the savoury filling that gives each rissole its body.
Good gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the meat filling.
Cream or butter
Enriches the gravy, adding fat for a softer, smoother texture.
Light pastry dough
Forms the outer shell that encloses the filling and crisps when fried.
Egg yolk
Brushed on top to promote even browning of the pastry.

The step that matters

Press the edges together to seal. If the edges are not sealed well, the filling can leak out into the hot oil and the pastry may open while frying. A firm seal keeps the filling enclosed.

“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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