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Rissoles

Small savoury rounds made from cold cooked meat with pork or ham, bound with flour and egg and cooked in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Rissoles

Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine cold meat, chopped pork or ham, gravy or water, flour, parsley, and mushrooms. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

  2. Beat the egg and add it to the mixture, stirring until smooth.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a pan and add the mixture, cooking until golden brown.

  2. Shape into small rounds and serve hot.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Pork + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  3. Meat + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Cold meat
Forms the bulk of the rissoles and gives them their main flavor.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and helps bind the mixture together.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the rissoles hold their shape when cooked.
Butter
Fat for the pan that helps the outside brown.
Gravy or water
Adds moisture so the mixture stays soft and cohesive.

The step that matters

Cooking until golden brown. The rissoles need enough heat and fat in the pan to brown the outside while the centre heats through. Too little heat leaves them pale and soggy, and the egg-and-flour binder can stick or crumble if the mixture is too wet.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pork, flour, mushroom, egg, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pork, flour, mushroom, egg, butter. 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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