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Fish Rissoles

Small fried balls made from chopped fish, butter, milk, flour, anchovy paste, parsley, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Fish Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove skin and bones from the fish and chop it finely.

  2. In a saucepan, make a smooth thick sauce with flour, butter, and milk.

  3. Flavor the sauce with anchovy, parsley, pepper, and salt; stir in the chopped fish and mix well.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a plate and let it cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into small balls, coat them with egg and bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the balls in hot fat until golden brown; drain on kitchen paper.

  3. Arrange on a dish and garnish with parsley.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold fish
Forms the main body of the rissoles and gives them their flavor.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a smooth sauce that binds the fish.
Butter
Adds richness and helps make the sauce smooth.
Milk
Liquid that turns the flour and butter into a thick sauce.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before shaping. A thick sauce that is still warm is too soft to hold its shape, so the balls can fall apart. Cooling lets the starch set so the balls keep their form in the hot fat.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, milk, flour, anchovy, pepper, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, milk, flour, anchovy, pepper, bread. 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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