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Potato Cheese Rissoles

Cheese and potato balls fried in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Potato Cheese Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Pass the boiled potatoes through a sieve.

  2. Add the butter, grated cheese, cayenne pepper, salt, and the well-beaten yolks of 2 eggs.

  3. Form the mixture into small round balls.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each ball into the yolk of the third egg.

  2. Roll the dipped balls in finely grated bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the balls in boiling butter until brown.

Serve

  1. Serve on a folded napkin, garnished 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled potatoes
Provide the starchy bulk that holds the rissoles together after being sieved smooth.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and helps the crust brown when fried.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and form a coating that helps the bread crumbs adhere.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust during frying.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and browns the outside when frying.

The step that matters

Fry the balls in boiling butter until brown. The butter must be hot enough to crisp the crumb coating quickly; if it is too cool, the rissoles absorb grease and turn soggy, while overheating can burn the crumbs before the centre warms through.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parmesan cheese, egg, 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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