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Meat and Potato Rissoles

A fried patty made from minced meat, cold potatoes, parsley, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Meat and Potato Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Heat the butter in a saucepan.

  2. If desired, fry 1 teaspoon finely chopped onion in the butter.

  3. Add the minced meat, sieved potatoes, parsley, seasoning, and the yolk of one egg. Mix well.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a plate to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into balls, dip in egg, and coat with 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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 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. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Minced meat
Provides the main savoury body and flavour of the patties.
Potatoes
Add moisture and starch that help bind the mixture and keep it tender.
Eggs
Egg yolk binds the mixture, and the beaten egg helps breadcrumbs stick.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.

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 oil and turns greasy before the centre is heated through.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, meat, parsley, nutmeg, pepper, egg. 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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