Rissoles anyone?

[Suffs Profile]

Member 461's thread on croquetas had me thinking ........rissoles were a regular meal in my childhood ... a way of eking out leftover roast meat to make a tasty midweek meal.

We all seem taken with croquetas but I bet we never make rissoles nowadays ... the only recipes I can find online use egg as a binding agent, but I'm sure I remember Ma making extra bechamel for a white sauce with cauliflower on a Sunday and using some to bind cold minced roasted lamb which, when seasoned with herbs and some spicing, and panéed (is that how you spell it ... ) and shallow fried, were a tasty family meal.

Does anyone make rissoles nowadays?

[Alexandria Profile]

Interesting post Suffs ..

We do "Italian Chicken (mince)" Rissoles.

The ingredients are:

500grams of Chicken Mince from Butcher or leftovers
1 egg lightly beaten
Bread crumbs
2 cloves of tiny sliced garlic
1 / 2 onion or shallot or leek or Green scallion
Kalamata olives ( a handful ) sliced very finely
fresh herbs: Basil, parsley, thyme, sage ( grow on my terrace )
Flour
Evoo
Reggiano Parmesan (parmigiani aged ) and grated finely
lemon zest grated finely
salt and black pepper to taste
1 red dried horn shaped Basque Cayenne Chili Pepper crumbled ( guindilla )

Sautéed in Evoo .. I served with Antipasto or a Tri color salad ..

I boil cauliflower until just tender and then, oven bake the Caulifower with a Bechamel topping .. Very popular in Spain.
And delicious too ..


Have a nice day.

[patpoyntz Profile]

I occasionally make Delias rissoles, out of her first ‘cookery course’ set of books. She suggests cooked lamb or beef, but I usually use left over ham. They have breadcrumbs and egg in them.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Definitely never had béchamel in (or on) a rissole, my Mum used egg. We also didn’t have white sauce on our veg, so that wouldn’t have been any to use up

Very different from croquetas, which are soft and gooey, rissoles as I remember them are more like a burger in a an orange coat of Paxo crumbs.

I remember Marguerite Patten making them like that on a programme where they took a family through rationing

[Suffs Profile]

Ma made two sorts of rissoles ... as I recall lamb ones usually had the bechamel to bind (we often had either cauliflower or leeks and white sauce with roasted lamb). Beef rissoles would use egg as a binder, but they were much rarer as Ma loved cold rare roast beef).

Breadcrumb coating would have been raspings of stale bread dried off in the Rayburn bottom oven.

[jeral Profile]

Suffs, I don't make rissoles, nor ever had them nor made them. I made (for meat eaters) lamb koftas fairly frequently being blended cooked lamb etc and grilled. No binder as such. Beefburger purists say that raw beef is sticky enough if minced and done right, but I wouldn't know.

As a kid, minced beef was boiled and gravy-fied with browning gravy salts, so bobbles with gravy. My first white sauce was as part of a lasagne years later, so I'm no help whatsoever on binders for rissoles

[Renee Profile]

What an interesting thread! My mum once made lamb rissoles from a leftover joint of lamb, but I'm not sure what she added to them. Most likely an egg and some breadcrumbs.

I made something similar using turkey mince. I also make Italian beef and pork meatballs, which are surely similar to rissoles!

[Pepper Pig Profile]

I make Delia’s too now and again.

Had some awful ones at the River Cottage canteen in Axminster a few years ago. They were like cannonballs. Such a shame as the rest of the meal was fantastic.

[Joanbunting Profile]

As I said, I am making Dutch style croquettes for this evening. The bas is ready - set with gelatine and bechamel sauce, loads of chopped parsley and ham and a little mustard. It's spread out on the metal plate I use for such things and is firming up in the fridge right now. In a bit Ill shape,flour, eggs and breadcrumb them before deep frying.

I also use mashed potato to make left-over meat or cheese go further and sometimes just fresh breadcrumbs and egg.

[Binky Profile]

I have never had a rissole, and didn't know what they were until I read this thread, then looked further on wikipedia. It seems they have been around since the times of the Ancient Greeks, and most countries have their version. They look like a burger to me.

[Linnet Profile]

My OH loved rissoles - IF there was ever any beef left from a roast! Always with an onion put through the mincer after the beef, then a slice of bread to soak up the juices. An egg to bind, but not breadcrumbed before frying. Haven't made them since he died.

[Renee Profile]

I would think that's the way my mum would have made then Linnet, using her Spong mincer, although she would have made breadcrumbs using her grater.

[Lusciouslush Profile]

I remember the old spong cast iron mincer being clamped to the kitchen worktop & leftover lamb from the Sunday roast being converted to mince for rissoles - a mid week treat with ( twice cooked - way before Heston et al) HM chips or mash - & wonderfully lamb-y!

Very simply cooked, no breadcrumb coating, just flour & shallow fried - I think there may have been a spot of mash in the mix but definitely no spices apart from S&P.

Sometimes simple really is best.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Our rissoles contained the minced leftover roast, some fried onion, S&P, and I think a small chunk of bread used to clean out the mincer. A little of the beaten egg to hold them together, the rest used (with a splash of milk to eke it out) to egg and breadcrumb them.


The double cooking really intensified the meat flavour

[Binky Profile]

I realise now why I have never had rissoles - you need left over meat from a Sunday roast. I can't remember exactly what we had for lunch, but I can't recall ever having beef (or chicken). We were a poor family (dad was a Polish refugee after the war) and we had a strange impoverished diet. Lots of sausages, brisket, polony, cornish pasties, fish fingers and corned beef.....but no proper meat to roast on a Sunday.

I was almost 19 before I tasted fresh strawberries and cream (get your violins out).

[karadekoolaid Profile]

Weren´t they Bird´s Eye Rissoles, Suffs?

We used to love them!

And it also reminds me of a (very old, slightly smutty) joke...

[Alexandria Profile]

Binky,

The Middle Eastern Tribes, The Chinese,
The Ancient Greeks and The Romans
have all left their fingerprints on
this evolving dish ..

The "keftedes" and
the meatball are "cousins" ..

[Stokey Sue Profile]

There may well have been Birds Eye rissoles but I never had them

Of course every culture (well, every meat eating culture) has its minced meat patty - my local oçakbaši (Turkish charcoal grill restaurant) must do at least 6 kinds, then there are Indian seekh kebabs etc.

But I think to a group of Brits who grew up from just before WW2 until perhaps the late 60s it may have had a rather specific meaning, which is probably being lost

My family I think was quite typical of many
We had a roast on Sunday, beef or lamb in our house (not pork, my dad thought that wasn’t “Sunday” but that was just him. Not chicken, which would have been too expensive
On Monday we had the meat cold with potatoes and other veg
On Tuesday we had meat made into something, rissoles, cottage pie, occasionally curry. It tended to be minced.

[Suffs Profile]

Not a chance of Birds Eye rissoles or anything else in our house Clive ... no freezer, no fridge until after I’d left home and married, and at least 8 miles from any shop that might have a stock of frozen goods! Mid Suffolk in the 50/60s

[Stokey Sue Profile]

We had a fridge but it had an ice compartment the size of a lunch box, if my mum needed frozen peas, or frozen fish fillets or ice cream I was sent out to the shop.

Apart from the ice cream it didn’t matter if it thawed as it was to be eaten that day.