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Rissole of Fish

A fried fish patty made from boiled white fish, bread crumbs, butter, egg whites, and seasoned, served in veal stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Rissole of Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove bones and skin from the boiled white fish and weigh it.

  2. Add grated bread crumbs, cold melted butter, salt, and egg whites to the fish.

  3. Mix well and shape into a flat oval.

Fry and stew

  1. Fry the shaped fish on both sides until golden.

  2. Stew the fried fish in veal stock thickened with browned flour and a little ketchup.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Egg whites
Bind the fish mixture so the rissole holds its flat oval shape when fried.
Grated bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body, keeping the fish mixture tender rather than wet.
Cold melted butter
Adds richness and fat, keeping the rissole moist and tender as it cooks.
Browned flour
Thickens the veal stock and adds a toasted, deeper color and flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the shaped fish on both sides until golden. The shaped mixture is soft and bound only by egg white and crumbs, so it can break apart if handled roughly or flipped too early. Frying until a golden crust forms sets the outside so it holds together during the stew.

“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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