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Rissoles of Cold Meat

A cold meat mixture shaped into sausages or balls, coated in breadcrumbs and fried or baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Rissoles of Cold Meat

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the cold meat and onion finely.

  2. Drain the soaked bread crumbs and beat them with a fork.

  3. Mix the meat, onion, soaked bread crumbs, salt, and pepper together.

Shape and coat

  1. Form the mixture into sausages or balls.

  2. Dip each piece into beaten egg.

  3. Coat each piece with additional bread crumbs.

Cook

  1. Fry or bake in hot dripping at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 minutes.

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

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

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  3. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  4. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Forms the main body of the rissole and carries its flavour.
Bread crumbs
Soaked crumbs add moisture and bind the mixture so it holds its shape.
Egg
Binds the mixture and beaten egg helps the outer crumb coating adhere.
Onion
Adds aroma and savoury sweetness to the meat filling.

The step that matters

Coating each piece with egg and crumbs. If the egg layer is thin or uneven, the crumbs will not stick and may fall off during frying. A firm, even coating also helps the rissole brown evenly and keeps the moist filling inside.

Swap the onion

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

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

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