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Rissoles, or Croquettes

A fried patty made from minced cold meat, ham, and seasonings, bound with eggs and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,062 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rissoles, or Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mince the cold meat and ham finely.

  2. Season the meat with salt, white pepper, nutmeg, onion powder, and parsley.

  3. Melt the butter in a stewpan and stir in the flour gradually.

  4. Add the milk and stock and cook until the rawness of the flour is gone.

  5. Stir in the minced meat, bread crumbs, beaten eggs, catsup, and lemon peel, and mix well.

  6. Let the mixture cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into balls or slightly flattened rolls.

  2. Dip each in egg and roll each in bread crumbs.

  3. Heat lard in a saucepan until boiling.

  4. Drop the rissoles into the lard 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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 meat
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives the rissoles their main flavor.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and set when cooked, helping hold the shape.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the base sauce that binds the filling.
Flour
Thickens the milk and stock into a binding base for the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body to the filling, and form a golden crust when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, soft filling is hard to shape and may fall apart or stick to the hands. Cooling lets the starch and egg firm up so the rissoles hold their form in the hot lard.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, ham, nutmeg, onion, parsley, butter, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, ham, nutmeg, onion, parsley, 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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