Rissoles from a favorite cookbook

[Lee Jorgensen]

Last weekend at our Diggins event one of the meals my sister and I cooked was rissoles in gravy , mashed potatoes and sliced tomatas.

I got the recipe for the rissoles from the Cooks Own Book 1832. I was pronouncing rissoles like it was Italian, emphasis on the second syllable.

I had to cook for about 25 people for this meal so I had a very large crockery bowl sitting on the table and I added the ingredients as I prepared them.

By the way it was beyond good...

Anyway, there were no less than three people stop to chat who were from various places in the UK who commented"OH, you're making    Riss-O lees"!

Apparently it is a popular dish in the UK even now and they were able to identify it just from the ingredients in the bowl. How cool is that? I was able to ask about modern preparation and it was right in line with the instructions in my book.

So if you want to make a really good period correct meat dish for mid 1800's give it a try.

I used ground 20 % fat  burger rather than hand chopping lean beef and suet and mashing in a mortar, as I had time constraints and lots of folks to feed.

Anyway

For each one and a quarter pound of ground beef add 1/4 pound grated bread, a little onion, a head of garlick bruised, season with salt and pepper, bind it with three eggs well beaten, make it up into small cakes, fry them a light golden brown then stew them in gravy for fifteen on twenty minutes.
 
I used 10 pounds of burger, the bread and one large onion finely minced and about two tablespoons of minced garlick, love the spelling. I don't know if they meant a clove of garlic or a whole head, so I opted for the middle ground. Eggs, salt and pepper.
It was so good! Almost like mini meat loaves in gravy, what could have been wrong with that?

This cookbook is an absolute treasure trove of information and recipes. The many great nephew of the woman that wrote it had it republished. It went to 13 editions up until 1860 and was widely distributed in both the north and south so would be correct for both sides of the Mason Dixon line to use...

Lee