For _rissoles_, cold beef, chicken, veal, tongue, or lamb may be used,
separately or mixed. The meat should not be chopped, but cut into quite
small dice. It is well to add to it a slight flavoring of chopped pork,
and a little finely chopped parsley. As the meat can be prepared in
different ways, the addition of a superfluous mushroom or two, cut into
dice, would not be amiss.
Put a small piece of butter, size of a pigeon’s egg, into a saucepan,
and when it begins to boil add a heaping tea-spoonful of flour; stir for
a minute to cook the flour, then add three or four table-spoonfuls of
boiling water, or, what is much better, stock, gravy, or brown or white
sauce if you happen to have it; when well mixed, add about two cupfuls
of the meat dice, heat well, and just before taking from the fire stir
in an egg.
The scraps of puff-paste are generally preferred, yet any kind of
pie-paste may be used for _rissoles_. Roll the paste quite thin
(one-sixth of an inch); wet it about three inches from the edge, and
place upon it little balls (a generous tea-spoonful in each one) of the
prepared meat, at distances of four inches apart; now lap over the edge
of the paste, quite covering the balls of meat; press the side of the
hand between each one, and, with the edge of a tumbler or muffin-ring,
press the paste close to the meat; with a biscuit-cutter (scolloped one
prettier) cut out each enveloped ball of meat into half circles. Now cut
off the rough edges of the remaining paste, and proceed to make other
rows of the _rissoles_ in the same manner. With a brush wet all the tops
with the yolk of an egg. Bake the _rissoles_ in a hot oven, and serve
them hot on a folded napkin. If they get cold, they may be reheated just
before serving.