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Chicken Rissoles

Small cakes made from chopped baked chicken, bread crumbs, broth, spices, and butter, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Chicken Rissoles

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the meat from the bones of the cold baked chicken and chop it finely.

  2. Mix the dried bread crumbs with the heated chicken broth or hot water until moistened.

Form and cook

  1. In a bowl, combine the chicken, moistened bread crumbs, salt, pepper, sage, and butter.

  2. Form the mixture into small cakes and dust with flour.

  3. Fry the cakes in a pan until they are 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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 baked chicken
Provides the main body and protein of the rissoles.
Dried bread crumbs
Absorb the broth or water and bind the mixture so it holds its shape.
Chicken broth or hot water
Moistens the bread crumbs, keeping the cakes tender rather than dry.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the cakes brown when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes until light brown. Frying over steady heat browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, adding flavour and a crisp crust, while the interior heats through. Too high a heat can scorch the outside before the centre is hot.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, bread, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, bread, pepper, butter, 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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