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Beef Rissoles

A small patty of beef, suet, bread, onion, garlic, and eggs, fried and stewed in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Beef Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a marble mortar, pound the beef and suet together.

  2. Mix in the grated bread, onion, garlic, salt, and pepper.

  3. Bind the mixture with the beaten eggs.

Cook

  1. Form the mixture into small cakes.

  2. Fry the cakes until light brown.

  3. Stew the fried cakes in gravy for 15 to 20 minutes.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the main body and meaty texture of the rissole.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the cakes moist and tender during cooking.
Grated bread
Absorbs moisture and helps the mixture hold together in cakes.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the cakes set firmly when cooked.

The step that matters

Binding and forming the cakes. The beaten eggs must be mixed in evenly so the cakes hold their shape. If the mixture is too wet, the cakes can fall apart in the frying pan.

Swap the garlic

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Garlicthe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, onion, pepper, 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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