Name: Veal Rissoles
Ingredients: ½ pint of stock or cream; Salt and pepper to taste; 1 egg; Grated nutmeg to taste; Bread crumbs; Butter for frying; Chopped veal; Chopped ham

Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Veal Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the veal and ham very finely.
Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour, and stir until smooth.
Add the stock and bring to a boil for five minutes.
Mix in the chopped meat, season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, and let it cool.
Form the mixture into balls, brush with beaten egg, and coat with bread crumbs.
Fry in hot fat until golden brown.
Serve with fried 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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,920 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, pepper, egg, bread, butter, veal, ham):

Nutmegthe original
Parsleyfits about as well
Tarragonfits less well
Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pepper, egg, bread, butter, veal, ham. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.