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Rissoles of Veal

Rissoles of Veal are small meatballs of veal and ham wrapped in pastry, fried and served with celery and pickled onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Rissoles of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop cold veal finely and mix with chopped ham, hard-boiled eggs, melted butter, and seasonings.

  2. Form the mixture into small balls.

Wrap and fry

  1. Roll out thin pastry and moisten around each ball of meat.

  2. Cover with another layer of pastry and cut out with a biscuit cutter, sealing the edges.

  3. Brush the tops with beaten egg and fry in hot lard until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with celery and white pickled onions.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 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

Cold veal
Forms the main body of the filling, giving the rissoles their meaty texture.
Hard-boiled eggs
Bind the filling and add a firm, slightly crumbly texture.
Melted butter
Adds fat and moisture to keep the filling tender and rich.
Thin pastry
Encloses the filling and crisps into a golden, browned shell when fried.
Beaten egg
Brushed on top to promote even browning of the pastry.

The step that matters

Sealing the edges before frying. If the pastry edges are not sealed tightly, the filling can leak into the hot lard and the rissoles can break apart or absorb excess fat. A firm seal keeps the filling moist inside while the pastry crisps outside.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, egg, butter, pepper, lemon, nutmeg. 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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