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Beef Rissoles

A pastry-wrapped beef mixture shaped into crescents and fried.

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

Beef Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Chop the cooked beef very finely.

  2. In a small saucepan, heat the butter and lightly fry the onion.

  3. Stir in the flour, add the stock, and bring to a boil.

  4. Add the chopped meat, parsley, nutmeg, and season with salt and pepper.

  5. Mix well and let cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the pastry to about 1/8 inch thick and cut into 1.5 to 2-inch rounds.

  2. Place a small amount of the meat mixture on one half of each round.

  3. Moisten the edges of the pastry, fold over to form a crescent shape, and press the edges together.

  4. Brush the rissoles with beaten egg, then roll in crushed vermicelli or breadcrumbs.

  5. Fry in hot fat until golden brown, about 5-7 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. 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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the onion and the thickened filling.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a binding paste that holds the meat filling together.
Egg
Beaten egg brushed on the coating helps it stick and encourages browning when fried.
Cooked beef
Provides the main savoury filling that gives the rissoles their flavour.
Pastry
Forms the crisp outer shell that encloses the filling.

The step that matters

Let the filling cool before shaping. A hot filling softens the pastry and makes it tear or leak, and the starch-thickened mixture only firms up as it cools, so it holds its shape when folded and fried.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, parsley, nutmeg, 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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