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Maigre Rissolles

Rice balls made with boiled rice, egg yolks, cream, pepper, and salt, filled with butter and peppercorn, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Maigre Rissolles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice mixture

  1. Combine boiled rice, egg yolks, cream, pepper, and salt in a pan and stir over low heat until mixed.

  2. Allow the mixture to cool.

Form and fry

  1. Take a tablespoonful of the mixture, place a small piece of butter and a peppercorn in the center, and form it into a ball.

  2. Coat the ball in egg and then in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in hot oil until light brown.

  4. Serve with fried parsley.

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

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

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

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

  4. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled rice
Forms the bulk of the rissole and gives it a soft, starchy body.
Raw egg yolks
Bind the rice mixture and add richness and a set structure when cooked.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the rice mixture.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Frying until light brown. The egg coating and crumbs brown in hot oil, forming a crisp shell. If the oil is not hot enough, the rissoles absorb more oil and the coating turns greasy. Frying too long can overcook the centre and dry the rice.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, egg, cream, pepper, butter, bread. 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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