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Fish Rissoles

A fried fish patty made with fish, flour, butter, stock, anchovy sauce, egg, breadcrumbs, and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fish Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a pan, melt the butter and mix in the flour to form a paste over medium heat.

  2. Gradually stir in the fish stock until thickened.

  3. Mix in the boiled fish, anchovy sauce, pepper, and salt until well combined.

Shape and coat

  1. Flour your hands lightly, take a small amount of the mixture, and shape it into a long roll.

  2. Repeat until all the mixture is used.

  3. Dip each rissole in the beaten egg.

  4. Coat each rissole with breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat oil in a pan until smoking hot.

  2. Fry the rissoles until golden brown.

  3. Drain the rissoles on kitchen paper.

  4. Arrange the rissoles on a dish and serve.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms a paste with the butter that thickens the stock into a binding base.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the paste and carries flavour through the mixture.
Boiled fish
Provides the main filling and flavour of the rissoles.
Beaten egg
Helps the breadcrumb coating stick and sets to form a crisp outer layer.
Fine white breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Thicken the base fully before shaping. The flour and butter paste must cook in the stock until thickened, because a thin base will not hold its shape and the rissoles may break apart in the oil.

“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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