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Potato Rissoles

A fried ball of mashed potatoes mixed with egg yolks, butter, parsley, shallot, salt, and pepper, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Potato Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potato mixture

  1. Pass the boiled potatoes through a sieve.

  2. Mix the sieved potatoes with egg yolks, butter, parsley, shallot, salt, and pepper.

  3. Roll the mixture into walnut-sized balls.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the balls in beaten egg and then in breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry the balls in boiling fat 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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  4. Potato + shallottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together272 recipes

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

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

Boiled potatoes
Form the bulk of the rissole, giving a soft, moist interior.
Egg yolks
Bind the mashed potato so the balls hold their shape.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the potato mixture.
Beaten egg
Acts as the glue that helps breadcrumbs adhere to the balls.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp outer coating that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Fry the balls in boiling fat until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to crisp and brown the breadcrumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs excess fat and turns greasy before the centre heats through.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, parsley, shallot, pepper):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, parsley, shallot, 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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