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Beef Rissoles. No. 2

Beef rissoles are small meat cakes made from beef, suet, breadcrumbs, onion, garlic, eggs, and seasonings, then fried and stewed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Beef Rissoles. No. 2

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Combine the chopped beef and suet in a bowl and pound well together.

  2. Mix in the bread crumbs, onion, garlic, salt, and pepper.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and mix until well combined.

Cook

  1. Form the mixture into small cakes.

  2. Fry the cakes in a skillet until light brown.

  3. Stew the fried cakes in gravy for 15 to 20 minutes.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the rissoles.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the cakes moist and tender as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the cakes hold their shape.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so the cakes hold their form.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes until light brown. The cakes must be formed firmly enough to hold shape in the skillet. Frying over moderate heat builds a browned surface that adds flavor before the gentle stewing in gravy finishes them through.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, onion, pepper, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Garlicthe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, onion, 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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