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Cheese Rissoles

Cheese Rissole is a small fried ball made from grated cheese and beaten egg whites, seasoned with salt, pepper, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parmesan cheese and cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,041 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cheese Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine the grated Parmesan and English cheese.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. Season the egg whites with salt, pepper, and mustard, then fold in the cheese mixture.

  4. Form the mixture into small balls.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat oil in a pan and fry the balls for 3 minutes until golden brown.

  2. Serve hot with salad.

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. Parmesan cheese + cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,041 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

  4. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Parmesan cheese + mustardtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together545 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks to trap air, giving the rissoles a light, airy texture.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and helps the rissoles brown when fried.
English cheese
Adds body and extra cheesy flavour to the mixture.

The step that matters

Fold in the cheese mixture gently. Folding keeps the air whipped into the stiff egg whites. Stirring or beating vigorously would deflate the foam, leaving the rissoles dense rather than light.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parmesan cheese, cheese, egg, pepper):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parmesan cheese, cheese, egg, 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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