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Lentil Rissoles

A fried pastry-wrapped lentil filling served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Lentil Rissoles

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 ↓

Lentil Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cook the lentils until soft enough to mash.

  2. Add the butter, pepper, salt, and parsley to the lentils and mix well.

Shape the rissoles

  1. Roll out the pastry very thin and cut it into rounds using a cutter.

  2. Place a small amount of the lentil mixture in the center of each round.

  3. Wet the edges of the pastry and pinch them together to seal.

  4. Dip each rissole in the beaten egg and coat with bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the rissoles in hot oil until golden brown.

  2. Serve hot 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Lentils + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together322 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Lentils + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lentils
Provide the bulk of the filling, and when mashed they hold the rissole together.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mashed lentil filling.
Egg
Beaten egg acts as a binder and helps the bread crumb coating adhere.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried.
Pastry
Encloses the filling and crisps up when fried in oil.

The step that matters

Sealing the pastry edges. Wet the edges before pinching so they bond fully. A poor seal lets filling leak out, and the rissole can burst or absorb oil during frying.

Swap the lentils

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

  1. Walnutfits better
  2. Peasfits better
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Lentilsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, parsley, egg, 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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