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Fried Rissoles

Fried rissoles are small meatballs made with cold meat, suet, breadcrumbs, herbs, and flour, then fried in clarified dripping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Fried Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat ½ lb of clarified dripping in a saucepan.

  2. Finely chop the cold meat until you have about 2 tablespoons.

  3. Chop 2 oz of suet until you have about 2 tablespoons.

  4. Grate enough bread to have more than 2 tablespoons of crumbs for coating.

  5. Wash and dry 2 sprigs of parsley, then chop finely to yield 1 tablespoon.

  6. Chop a sprig each of marjoram and thyme, discarding the stalks.

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, mix the meat, suet, and 2 tablespoons of bread crumbs.

  2. Add the herbs, 2 oz of flour, and ¼ teaspoon of salt, and mix well.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into small balls, then coat them in additional bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the rissoles in the hot dripping 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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Provides the main savoury bulk and flavour of the rissoles.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the rissoles moist and rich as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body, then form a crisp golden coating when fried.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so the balls hold their shape.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and helps the mixture hold together while shaping.

The step that matters

Fry in hot dripping until golden brown. The dripping must be hot enough to set the coating quickly. If it is too cool, the crumbs absorb more fat, become greasy, and the rissoles may fall apart or cook unevenly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, bread, marjoram, thyme, egg, pepper, flour):

  1. Winter savoryfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, marjoram, thyme, egg, pepper, flour. 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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