Home › Fish › Rissoles of Fish
Rissoles of Fish
To any quantity or kind of cold cooked fish, weighed after the bones and skin have been removed, add a third part of grated bread crumbs, a finely minced boiled onion, some cold melted butter, and the yolks of 2 eggs; season with pepper and salt. Make puff paste, roll it thin, and cut it into squares of two inches. Place about a teaspoonful of the mince on each square, and fold over with paste. Wet the edges of the paste, before closing them, that they may adhere, and fry in boiling fat, first egging and covering the rissoles with bread crumbs. Serve dry. Garnish with fried parsley. Fry till lightly browned.
A leftovers dish written in the open-ended Victorian style: no yields, no quantities beyond ratios, and an assumption that the cook can judge a filling by feel. The proportions scale from whatever fish you have.
- Working the ratioWeigh the picked fish after skin and bone are removed, then add a third of that weight in dry breadcrumbs. The recipe fixes the yolks at two but names no quantity of fish, so treat that as suiting a modest batch and scale the binder with the mince rather than adding eggs to a small batch, or the mince turns wet and bursts the paste.
- "Cold melted butter"In books of this period melted butter usually means the flour-thickened butter sauce, and cold means it has set to a soft paste. A few tablespoons of thick cold bechamel or simply softened butter both work; the point is a binder that is not liquid.
- Filling must be cold and stiffChill the mince thoroughly before filling. Warm or loose filling steams inside the pastry and blows the seam open in the fryer.
- Puff paste, rolled thin"Thin" here is perhaps an eighth of an inch. A two-inch square folded over a teaspoon of mince gives a small triangle, so a pound of fish yields a great many small rissoles. Press the wetted edges firmly and, if you like, seal with a fork.
- Egg and crumb over pastryCoating puff paste in egg and crumbs is unusual to modern eyes, but the recipe is explicit about it. Let the coated rissoles rest 20 minutes in the refrigerator so the crumb sets before frying.
- "Boiling fat"Fat never boils; the phrase means fully hot deep fat, 350-360F. Higher and the crumb colours before the pastry has cooked through. Fry three or four minutes to a light brown, in small batches.
- Fried parsleyDry the sprigs completely and drop them into the same fat for 10 to 15 seconds only. Wet parsley spits violently and turns black in a few seconds more.
- Serve dryThis appears to mean drained and sent to table without sauce. If you want one, a plain tartare or a sharp tomato sauce is better served alongside than poured over.