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RISSOLES (a la Pompadour)
Mince as finely as possible two table-spoonfuls of cooked game or chicken, mix it with a table-spoonful of stock or gravy, and season with pepper and salt. Make a small quantity of puff-paste; roll it out as thinly as possible, and cut it into two-inch squares. Place a small tea-spoonful of mince on one half, and fold over the other so as to form a diamond shape, and press lightly round, forming the rissole into crescents. Brush them over with beaten egg; crush a table-spoonful of vermicelli with the rolling-pin, sprinkle a little over each; arrange the rissoles in a frying-basket, plunge them into boiling fat, and fry a delicate golden brown. Turn on to kitchen paper to drain, and serve on a hot napkin, garnished with fried parsley.
A small hot savoury built from leftover roast game or chicken, fried in deep fat. The whole thing hinges on the paste being cold and the seal being sound.
- Seal the parcels properlyPuff paste that is not pressed firmly shut will open in the fat and the filling will scatter. Damp the edges very lightly with water or egg wash, press with the back of a fork, and chill the finished rissoles for 20 minutes before frying so the layers set.
- Fat temperatureThe book gives no temperature; "boiling fat" in modern terms is somewhere around 350-360F. Hotter and the vermicelli coating scorches before the paste cooks through; cooler and the pastry drinks fat. Two to three minutes a batch is usually enough.
- Shape as writtenThe instruction is hard to follow: a two-inch square folded over on itself is called a "diamond", and the same parcels are then said to be formed into crescents. One reading is a corner-to-corner fold with the ends curved round. Do not overfill or no shape holds.
- VermicelliPlain dried Italian vermicelli, uncooked and crushed to short splinters with a rolling pin. It gives a spiky golden crust. Crushed fine egg noodles or angel hair work the same way; do not use rice vermicelli, which puffs violently in hot fat.
- The filling wants to be dryTwo tablespoons of mince to one of stock is deliberately stiff. A wet filling steams inside the paste and blows it apart, so reduce the gravy until it just binds.
- Fried parsleyDry the sprigs thoroughly, then dip them into the same fat for a few seconds only. Wet parsley spits badly and turns dark rather than bright green.
- YieldAs written this is a tasting quantity: a small teaspoon of filling each, so perhaps six to nine little rissoles, enough for two as a savoury. Scale up proportionately for a larger table.
- ServingThe "hot napkin" is a folded cloth on the dish to absorb fat, a Victorian convention. A warmed plate lined with paper does the job.
Rissoles came into English cookery from the French rissole, a small parcel of chopped meat enclosed in paste and fried, and by the late nineteenth century they were the standard genteel answer to the remains of yesterday's roast. The name "a la Pompadour" attaches to a large number of Victorian and Edwardian dishes with little consistency beyond a nod to Louis XV's marquise and a suggestion of daintiness; it is a menu flourish rather than a documented preparation. What the recipe really records is a household that roasted game often enough to have two tablespoons of it left over, and a cook expected to make puff paste in "a small quantity" without a second thought.