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Lentil Rissoles

Lentil rissoles are small fried patties made from mashed lentils, butter, spices, and pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Lentil Rissoles

Why it works: Lentils and nutmeg share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 55 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lentil Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cook the lentils until soft enough to mash.

  2. Add butter, pepper, salt, and nutmeg to the lentils.

Shape the rissoles

  1. Roll the pastry thin and cut into rounds using a teacup.

  2. Place a small amount of lentil mixture on each round, fold, wet the edges, and seal.

  3. Coat the rissoles in egg and breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in hot oil for about 5 minutes until golden.

  2. Serve hot with fried parsley.

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. Lentils + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Lentils + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lentils
Provide the bulk of the filling, becoming soft and mashable when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mashed lentil filling.
Pastry
Forms a crisp, golden shell that encloses the filling.
Egg (in the method)
Binds the breadcrumb coating so it adheres and browns when fried.

The step that matters

Sealing the rissoles. If the edges are not wet and pressed firmly, steam and hot oil can force the filling out and the pastry can open during frying. Wetting the edges helps the dough bond into a tight seal.

Swap the lentils

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Lentilsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, 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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