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Rissoles of All Kinds

A savory patty made with chopped meat, vegetables, and béchamel, coated in breadcrumbs and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rissoles of All Kinds

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter in a pan and fry the parsley, shallot, mushrooms, and tongue or ham for a few minutes, stirring constantly.

  2. Add flour to absorb the butter, then mix in the veal stock, cream, and béchamel sauce.

  3. Stir in the chopped meat, sugar, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, salt, and egg yolks.

  4. Cook until thick.

  5. Transfer the mixture to a dish and let it cool completely.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cool, shape the mixture into pears or long balls using bread crumbs.

  2. Beat the two eggs in a bowl, coat the formed rissoles, then roll them in bread crumbs.

  3. Heat oil or fat in a pan and fry the rissoles until golden brown.

  4. Serve on a napkin 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.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  3. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Fat that cooks the aromatics and enriches the filling with flavour and richness.
Flour
Absorbs the butter and thickens the veal stock, cream and béchamel into a binding base.
Egg yolks
Set during cooking to bind the filling so it holds its shape.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling soft and tender.
Béchamel sauce
Adds body and moisture, helping the filling stay smooth and cohesive.
Eggs
Beaten eggs act as the glue that helps bread crumbs cling to the shaped rissoles.

The step that matters

Cooling the filling completely before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is sticky and will not hold its shape or take the crumb coating evenly. Full cooling lets the thickened filling firm up so the rissoles keep their form while frying.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, shallot, mushroom, ham, butter, flour, veal):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, shallot, mushroom, ham, butter, flour, veal. 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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