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Shrimp Rissoles

Shrimp rissoles are pastry-wrapped shrimp patties fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Shrimp Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the shrimp filling

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, then add flour to the butter.

  2. Add milk to the mixture and stir until boiling.

  3. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and mace.

  4. Cook the mixture well, add the shrimps, and let the mixture cool.

Shape the rissoles

  1. Roll out the pastry thinly and cut into strips 4 inches wide.

  2. Place a spoonful of the shrimp mixture 4 inches apart on each strip.

  3. Brush around the mixture with water, fold the edges of the strip together, and press well.

  4. Cut out the rissoles with a half-round cutter.

Fry and serve

  1. Brush with beaten egg and roll in breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry in hot fat until brown, then drain the rissoles.

  3. Serve garnished with 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a smooth, binding white sauce for the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the base of the filling and helps form the roux.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the sauce that holds the shrimp filling together and keeps it moist.
Shrimps
Provide the main flavour and bulk of the filling.
Egg
Beaten egg brushed on the rissoles helps the breadcrumb coating brown and adhere.
Short pastry
Forms the sealed outer casing that encloses the filling and crisps when fried.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture well and let it cool before filling. A thick, fully cooked sauce holds its shape and keeps the filling from seeping through the pastry. Warm filling can soften the pastry and cause it to split or leak in the hot fat.

Swap the mace

The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, shrimp, pepper, butter, flour, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, shrimp, pepper, butter, flour, 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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