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Veal Rissolettes

Small veal and ham rissoles made with puff pastry, coated in vermicelli and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Veal Rissolettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Chop the veal and ham or tongue very finely.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter, add the flour, and stir until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the white stock, stirring until thickened.

  4. Mix in the chopped meat, lemon rind, mace, salt, and pepper. Stir over low heat until well combined.

  5. Remove from heat and let cool slightly, then stir in the cream or milk.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the puff pastry thinly and cut into 2-inch rounds.

  2. Place a small amount of the meat mixture on one half of each round.

  3. Moisten the edges with water, fold over to form a crescent shape, and press to seal.

  4. Brush the tops with beaten egg and roll in crushed vermicelli.

  5. Fry in hot fat until lightly browned.

Serve

  1. Arrange in a pyramid on a napkin.

  2. Garnish with fried parsley.

  3. 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

Veal
Forms the main body of the filling and gives the rissolettes their savoury meaty flavour.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth sauce that binds the meat filling.
White stock
Liquid that cooks with the flour to form a thickened sauce, adding moisture to the filling.
Butter
Fat that is melted with the flour to make the roux base for the sauce.
Egg
Beaten egg brushed on the tops promotes browning and a glossy golden finish when fried.
Puff pastry
Thin, flaky layers that puff and crisp around the filling when fried.

The step that matters

Let the filling cool slightly before shaping. Adding the cream or milk to a very hot sauce can cause it to separate or thin, and a hot filling softens the raw pastry, making it tear or leak during sealing and frying.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, cream, flour, butter, lemon, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, cream, flour, butter, lemon, pepper. 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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