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Russian Rissoles

A fried roll of batter, forcemeat, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Russian Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix flour, eggs, cream, salt, and warmed butter in a stew-pan until well combined.

  2. Pour a spoonful of the batter into a frying pan.

  3. Fry the batter until golden on both sides.

  4. Place the cooked pancakes on a baking sheet.

  5. Repeat with the remaining batter to make a dozen thin omelettes.

Shape the rissoles

  1. Cut each omelette in half.

  2. Trim each half to a long square shape.

  3. Place some forcemeat on each piece.

  4. Roll each piece up.

  5. Wet the edges with some batter to seal.

  6. Make twenty-four rissoles.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the rissoles in beaten eggs mixed with salt.

  2. Coat the rissoles with fine bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the rissoles until golden brown.

  4. Serve.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the batter's structure so the thin omelettes hold together when rolled.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set when cooked, giving the omelettes structure and a golden colour.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the thin omelettes tender rather than dry.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the batter and helps the omelettes brown in the pan.
Forcemeat
Provides the savoury filling that the thin omelette wrapper encloses.

The step that matters

Wet the edges with some batter to seal. If the rolled omelette edges are not sealed, the filling can escape during dipping and frying. Batter acts as a glue that holds the wrapper closed while it cooks.

“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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