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Meat and Rice Rissoles

A dish of rice formed into rissoles, filled with a seasoned meat and egg mixture, then coated and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,019 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Meat and Rice Rissoles

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash and drain the rice.

  2. Place the rice in a saucepan with enough stock to cover it.

  3. Cook until tender, adding more stock as needed.

  4. Season the rice with nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

  5. Spread the seasoned rice in a thin layer on a large dish.

Make the filling

  1. In a skillet, fry the shallots lightly in hot butter.

  2. Sprinkle in the flour, add the stock, and bring to a boil.

  3. Add the meat and 2 egg yolks to the skillet, season to taste, and stir over heat for a few minutes.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a plate to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Cut the rice into round or oval shapes.

  2. Spread half of them with the meat mixture and cover with the other half of the rice.

  3. Seal the edges carefully.

  4. Coat the rissoles completely with egg and breadcrumbs.

  5. Fry the coated rissoles in hot fat until golden brown.

  6. Serve hot.

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. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 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

Rice
Forms the tender, cohesive outer shell that holds the filling together.
Cold meat
Provides the savoury filling that gives the rissoles their main flavour and body.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavour of the shallots into the filling.
Egg yolks
Bind the meat filling so it sets slightly and holds together when cooled and fried.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a binding sauce that helps the filling hold its shape.
Shallots
Add a mild, aromatic onion flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Sealing the edges. If the edges of the rice shell are not sealed well, the filling can leak out during frying. Pressing the rice firmly around the filling keeps the rissoles intact and the filling moist.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, meat, butter, egg, flour, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, meat, butter, egg, flour, 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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