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Beef Rissoles

Beef rissoles are shaped meat patties coated in breadcrumbs and fried, served with tomato sauce.

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 ↓

Beef Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Add onion, parsley, and seasonings to the minced meat.

  2. Make a thick brown gravy with the remaining ingredients.

  3. When the gravy is cooked, add the meat mixture.

Shape and coat

  1. Cool the mixture, then shape it into cones or cylinders.

  2. Roll the shaped meat in breadcrumbs.

  3. Dip the breadcrumb-coated meat in egg.

  4. Roll the meat again in breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in deep fat at 390°F (200°C) until golden brown.

  2. Drain the rissoles, garnish, and serve with tomato sauce.

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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Minced cooked meat
Forms the bulk of the rissoles and gives them their meaty flavour and body.
Grated onion
Adds savoury aroma and moisture to the meat mixture.
Flour
Thickens the gravy and helps the meat mixture hold together.
Fat
Cooked with the flour to form a roux that gives the gravy its brown colour and richness.
Stock
Provides the liquid that thickens with the flour into gravy and adds savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before shaping. A warm, soft gravy-and-meat mixture is hard to shape and can slump or split. Cooling lets the starch set and the fat firm, so the cones or cylinders keep their form through coating and frying.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, parsley, pepper, flour. 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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