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Lentil Rissoles

A lentil-based patty made with onions, bread crumbs, and eggs, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Lentil Rissoles

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lentil Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lentil base

  1. Pick and wash the lentils.

  2. Boil the lentils in enough water to cover.

  3. Add the tomatoes and more water if needed to prevent burning.

  4. Fry the onion in 2 oz of butter. Mix the fried onion with the lentils as they stew.

  5. Season with pepper and salt. Cook until the lentils are soft and resemble a puree.

  6. Set the lentils aside to cool.

Shape the rissoles

  1. Combine the lentils with the bread crumbs.

  2. Beat one egg and add it to the mixture, mixing well. If the mixture is too dry, add a little milk to bind.

  3. Form the mixture into rissoles.

  4. Beat the second egg and coat the rissoles in the egg and bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the rissoles in boiling butter or oil until golden brown.

  2. Drain 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Lentils + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together463 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lentils + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,221 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Lentils
Cook down to a puree that forms the body of the rissoles.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and form a coating that helps the rissoles hold together.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add bulk so the mixture can be shaped.
Onion
Softens and sweetens in butter, adding savoury flavour to the lentils.
Tinned tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity to the lentils as they stew.
Butter
Enriches the onion and adds fat and browning when the rissoles are fried.

The step that matters

Frying the rissoles. Frying in hot butter or oil browns the egg and crumb coating quickly, sealing the outside. If the fat is not hot enough, the rissoles absorb oil, turn greasy, and may break apart.

Swap the lentils

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, bread, tomato, butter, egg, pepper):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Peasfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Lentilsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, bread, tomato, butter, egg, 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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