[Sca-cooks] The size of Rissoles

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Pat:
>Margaret asked:
>>  sorry to drag out inter-kingdom terminology
>again, but I had difficulty
>>  with this thread at first, not realising that a
>'rissole' might be
>>  something in pastry.
>
>Hmmm, actually, Margaret, I am confused, too.  Are we  talking about 
>a Medieval Rissole?
>I've found a couple of recipes for examples:
>>From "Apicius, The Roman Cookery Book" translated by Flowers and Rosenbaum"
>(for brevity, I won't type in the original Latin)
>Book II, I, 5
>Rissoles, Another Method.
>Put in a mortar pepper, lovage, and origan:  pound: moisten with 
>liquamen, add cooked brains, pound thoroughly to dissolve lumps. Add 
>five eggs, and beat well to work all into a smooth paste.  Blend 
>with liquamen, place in a metal pan, and cook.  When it is cooked, 
>turn out on a clean board and dice.  Put in the mortar pepper, 
>lovage, origan; pound, mix together:  Pour in liquamen and wine, put 
>in a saucepan and bring to the boil.  When boiling crumble in pastry 
>to thicken, stir vigorously, and pour in the serving-dish over the 
>diced rissoles: sprinkle with pepper and serve.
>
>Which says nothing about a wrapper  Apicius has many recipes for 
>rissoles, and none of them mention a wrapper.

Actually, Apicius never calls his dishes "rissoles"; it's his 
translators who have indulged in some equivocation: Apicius calls 
them exicia or isicia. Rissoles appear to be a French dish which has 
long been loved by the English, and today, you find them more in 
England than in France. Since the days of La Varenne, they're pretty 
much always wrapped in a thin layer of shortcrust, and fried. In 
fact, some modern culinary dictionaries define them as being the same 
thing as a croquette, but for the pastry, which is, as far as they're 
concerned, the distinguishing factor.

>and from Curye on Inglish,
>190. Rysshews of fruyt. Take fyges and raisouns; pyke hem and 
>waisshe hem in wyne. Grynde hem wiœ apples and peeres ypared and 
>ypiked clene. Do œerto gode powdours and hole spices; make balles 
>œerof, frye in oile, and serue hem forth.
>
>Rissoles of fruit.  Take mushrooms, and raisins: pick them, and wash 
>them in wine.  Grind them with apples and pears, pared and picked 
>clean.  Do thereto good powders and whole spices, make balls 
>thereof, fry in oil, and serve them forth.
>
>Again, no mention of a wrapper.
>
>This wrapped rissole may be a modern dish, but I am unfamiliar with it.

I believe the Form of Curye recipe to be an exception rather than the rule.

Rissoles, whenever they're actually called by that name, as far as I 
know, always have some kind of crust. Either by being deep-fried and 
forming their own, or being wrapped in pastry of some kind before 
being fried. Modernly, as far as I can tell, they're pretty much 
analagous to samosas, with either a pre-cooked ragout-type filling, 
say, something chopped in a sauce like a salmi of game or creamed 
whatever, or else a light forcemeat filling like the stuff you make 
quenelles out of (which would then be used raw, but cooked in the 
frying process).

I suspect that, essentially, rysschews closed and fried, which used 
to be one example of a family of dishes, has become the modern 
default setting for all rissoles. My error for failing to make that 
distinction when I mentioned a crust.

Adamantius
-- 
"As long as but a hundred of us remain  alive, never will we on any 
conditions be brought under English rule.  It is in truth not for 
glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are  fighting, but for freedom 
-- for that alone, which no honest man gives  up but with life 
itself."
	-- The Declaration of Arbroath, 1320

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