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Very Savoury English Rissoles

A small, fried meat patty made from forcemeat and pounded chicken, wrapped in dough and fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Very Savoury English Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the forcemeat and mix in the unbeaten yolk of 1 egg until firm.

  2. Roll the mixture thinly on a floured board and cut into small rounds.

Fill and seal

  1. Place a small amount of pounded chicken in the center of half the rounds.

  2. Moisten the edges with water or egg white, then cover with the remaining rounds and seal securely.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in butter until golden brown, about 5 to 7 minutes.

  2. Drain and serve on 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + chickentop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

Forcemeat no. 1
Forms the soft, savoury shell that encloses the filling.
Unbeaten yolk of 1 egg
Binds the forcemeat so it holds together when rolled and cut.
Pounded chicken
Provides the savoury filling sealed inside each rissole.
Butter for frying
Conducts heat and promotes browning on the outside of the rissoles.

The step that matters

Sealing the edges. If the edges are not moistened and pressed firmly, the rounds may not stick together, and the filling can leak or open out during frying.

“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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