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Veal Rissoles

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Veal Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mince the cold veal very finely.

  2. Mix in one-fourth of its bulk in cooked bacon or ham and bread crumbs.

  3. Add three or four drops of essence of anchovy, a little pepper, salt, and finely-chopped parsley.

  4. Moisten the mixture and bind it with beaten egg and a little gravy from the veal.

  5. Form the mixture into walnut-sized balls, lightly flour them, and fry until golden brown.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Anchovy + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,702 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, bread, anchovy, pepper, egg):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits less well
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, bread, anchovy, pepper, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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