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Veal Rissolettes

A dish of minced veal mixed with bacon, breadcrumbs, parsley, anchovy essence, pepper, salt, and egg, shaped and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 Rissolettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove meat from bones and mince finely.

  2. Mix minced veal with bacon, bread crumbs, parsley, anchovy essence, pepper, and salt.

  3. Combine with beaten egg to form a stiff paste.

Shape and fry

  1. Flour your hands and shape the mixture into corks or small eggs.

  2. Dip each piece into egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

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

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

  2. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  3. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Leftover veal
Forms the main body of the rissoles and gives them their meaty flavour.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the mixture, keeping the rissoles tender inside.
Beaten egg
Binds the mince into a stiff paste and gives the coating a set, golden crust.
Boiled bacon or pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour, keeping the filling from drying out.

The step that matters

Forming a stiff paste. If the mixture is too wet, the rissoles will slump and break apart in the pan. The egg and bread crumbs need to bind the minced meat firmly enough to hold its shape when shaped and coated.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, bread, anchovy, pepper, egg):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Sagefits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, 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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