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Fish Rissolles

A fried fish mixture formed into balls, containing fish, eggs, breadcrumbs, anchovy, celery, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Fish Rissolles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Chop the cooked fish finely.

  2. Mix in the chopped hard-boiled eggs, stale bread crumbs, anchovy, boiled celery, spice, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Pound the mixture together with a little stock and the butter.

  4. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into balls.

  2. Fry the balls lightly in bread crumbs 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help the rissoles hold their shape.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body so the mixture can be shaped.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mixture.
Cooked fish
Forms the main body of the rissoles and gives their flavour.

The step that matters

Add the beaten eggs and mix well. Eggs set when heated, so the mixture must be evenly combined to bind the rissoles and keep them from falling apart during frying.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, egg, bread, anchovy, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, bread, anchovy, butter. 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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