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Rissoles

A pastry-wrapped, fried meat mixture of chicken, sweetbreads, and eggs, coated in vermicelli.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Rissoles

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 ↓

Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Chop chicken, sweetbreads, and parsley very finely and mix with butter.

  2. Stir in cream and finely rubbed hard-boiled egg yolks.

  3. Add nutmeg, salt, and cayenne pepper, then heat in a saucepan until it boils.

  4. Chill the mixture in the refrigerator until cold.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the pastry very thin and cut into circles with a biscuit cutter.

  2. Place a large spoonful of the mixture on one half of each circle, fold over to form a half-moon, and press the edges together after greasing with butter.

  3. Dip each rissole in egg, then coat with broken vermicelli.

  4. Let them stand for a while, then fry in boiling lard 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the main meaty filling with a soft, tender texture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the minced filling as it is mixed in.
Rich cream
Keeps the filling moist and soft, giving it a smooth, spreadable body.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Rubbed fine, they bind the filling and add a creamy, rich texture.
Pastry
Forms a thin outer casing that crisps and browns when fried.

The step that matters

Chill the filling until cold. A warm, soft filling is hard to shape and can spill or burst the pastry in hot fat. Chilling firms the butter and cream so the rissoles hold their half-moon shape while frying.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, cream, egg, nutmeg, 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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