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Rissoles of Turkey or Chicken

A pastry-wrapped meat patty made with turkey or chicken, ham or tongue, breadcrumbs, onion, and spices, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rissoles of Turkey or Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the meat from the bones and skin, then chop it finely.

  2. Add the ham or tongue, bread crumbs, butter, chopped onion, pepper, and salt.

  3. Bind the mixture with the beaten eggs.

Shape the rissoles

  1. Roll out the puff pastry thinly and cut it into squares.

  2. Place a teaspoon of the meat mixture in the center of each square.

  3. Fold the pastry over and seal the edges with water.

  4. Dip each rissole in bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the rissoles in lard until golden brown.

  2. Garnish with crispy parsley before serving.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the filling together so it holds its shape when fried.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body to the filling, and form a crisp coating.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, layered outer case that crisps and browns when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling.
Meat from turkey or chicken
Forms the main body of the filling.

The step that matters

Seal the edges with water. If the pastry edges are not sealed well, the filling can leak out during frying. Moistening the edges helps the pastry stick firmly together.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, ham, bread, butter, pepper, egg, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, ham, bread, butter, pepper, egg, parsley. 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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