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Veal Rissoles

A savory dish of minced veal mixed with bacon, breadcrumbs, anchovy essence, herbs, and egg, formed into balls and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mince the leftover cold veal finely.

  2. Mix in cooked bacon or ham and bread crumbs.

  3. Add essence of anchovy, pepper, salt, and parsley.

  4. Moisten the mixture with beaten egg and gravy to bind it.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into walnut-sized balls and lightly flour them.

  2. Fry the balls until they are light brown.

  3. Serve warm.

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

What each ingredient does

Leftover cold veal
Provides the main meat and bulk of the rissoles.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture together so the balls hold their shape when fried.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mixture body and a softer texture.
Gravy from the veal
Adds moisture and savoury flavour, keeping the rissoles from drying out.
Cooked bacon or ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour and richness to the meat.

The step that matters

Fry the balls until they are light brown. Frying in fat creates browning through the Maillard reaction, which adds flavour and colour. Light flouring helps the surface brown evenly and crisp. Frying too long or too hot can dry out the cooked meat inside.

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.

“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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