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Fish Rissoles

Shredded fish mixed with butter, milk, roll, onion, eggs, and seasonings, baked into individual cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Stew the shredded fish in butter until done.

  2. Soak the French roll in milk.

  3. Beat the fish and roll it with the soaked roll, onion, and eggs.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, then mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in buttered small cups until set, then turn out.

  2. Serve with or without 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set into a firm, sliceable cake when heated.
Cooked fish
Provides the main body and flavor of the cakes.
French roll
Soaked in milk, it adds moisture and softens the texture.
Milk
Soaks the roll, adding moisture that keeps the cakes tender.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor through the fish.

The step that matters

Bake in buttered small cups until set. Egg proteins set with heat, so the cakes firm up as they cook. Underbaking leaves them loose and fragile, while overbaking makes them dry and rubbery.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, milk, egg, 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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