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Rissoles

A puff pastry pastry filled with minced fowl or veal, garlic, lemon peel, and gravy, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Rissoles

Why it works: Garlic and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,893 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut puff pastry into 3-inch rounds.

  2. Mix minced fowl or veal with garlic, lemon peel, white pepper, salt, mace, lemon juice, and gravy.

  3. Place some filling on one pastry round, wet the edges, and top with another round.

  4. Press the edges gently, brush with beaten egg, and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in boiling clarified beef dripping until light brown, then drain on a sieve.

  2. Serve in a napkin.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Garlic + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,893 recipes

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

  2. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, crisp shell that puffs and browns when fried.
Cold fowl or veal
Provides the savoury meat filling that gives the rissoles their body.
Beaten egg
Acts as a glue-like wash that helps the bread crumbs cling and brown.
Sifted bread crumbs
Form a golden, crunchy outer coating on the rissoles.
Good gravy
Adds moisture and savour to the meat filling so it stays tender.
Clarified beef dripping
Conducts heat to fry the rissoles evenly and adds rich flavour.

The step that matters

Fry in boiling clarified beef dripping until light brown. The fat must be hot enough to crisp the pastry and bread crumbs quickly. If it is too cool, the rissoles absorb grease and turn soggy before they brown.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, garlic, lemon, white pepper, egg, bread, beef):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, garlic, lemon, white pepper, egg, bread, beef. 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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