Mauritian Beef Rissoles Recipe

Moreish rissoles de boeuf – pastries the whole family will love

These delicious beef rissoles are proof positive that great food doesn’t need complicated recipes with hundreds of ingredients. Just flaky shortcrust pastry with a simple beef filling, you can whip up a batch in minutes.

Beef rissoles are sooooo irresistibly tasty and are far easier to make than to share – read on to get the recipe my family have been using for generations.

A family favourite

I come from a family of campers. Every school holiday (no matter how short), we’d head off in our battered Datsun Cherry car for some campsite invariably many hours drive away on the other side of the country.

Eating out wasn’t something you did as much back then, so my parents would cook up provisions for the trip for days beforehand. One essential that we always took with us was a big batch of rissoles de boeuf – beef rissoles.

This being the eighties when seat-belts were optional, our car would be piled high with camping gear; most of it squashed around us kids. There would always be a fight over seating for the journey. No-one wanted to be next to the kettle or in the boot with the dogs (yes, really).

The prime place was, of course, next to {or often on top of) the journey food bag. This was where that big box of beef rissoles would be right within grasping distance…

Rarely did that box make it to the campsite with anything left inside!

Les rissoles Mauriciens

Les rissoles Mauriciens are often made to use up leftover bits of meat, since you only need a little bit to make enough fillings for a whole batch of rissoles.

They can be eaten hot, straight from the oven; or cold, days later (in the unlikely event you have any left after that long); and being all wrapped up in pastry, they are an un-messy finger food, which is what makes them so good for journeys or picnics.

Want to give beef rissoles a go? Here’s what you’ll need.
(Any product links below are Amazon affiliate links for your convenience)

Beef Rissoles Recipe

• Makes approximately 24 rissoles
• Preparation time: 20 minutes
• Cooking time: 10 minutes
• Eating time: 2 seconds (on average)

Before beginning, set your oven to preheat – 220°C, 425°F, Gas Mark 7 (good pastry needs a hot oven).

Ingredients

1. 1 tbs cooking oil

2. 150g / 6oz mince beef
Go for the best quality you can, with a high fat content for the juiciest, most tender filling.

3. HALF a brown/yellow onion
Don’t be tempted to put the whole thing in – that’d be way too much! Dice your half-onion finely – you want very small pieces.

4. 1 tsp fresh thyme
Strip from the stalks and chop the leaves finely.

Here’s a little tip for stripping the thyme leaves quickly – stick the end of the thyme twig into a colander or sieve hole, and pull through. The leaves will be knocked off as it passes through the hole. Pull from the inside out, to catch them inside your holey device of choice!

5. salt and pepper
To taste – but don’t be shy. I usually put about 1/2 tsp of pepper and 1/4 tsp of salt, but it varies depending on the flavour in the beef.

6. shortcrust pastry
I use ‘ready rolled’ for a really quick cook, and that’s what the cooking times here are based on.

However, if you want to make your own, you’ll find the recipe for shortcrust that I use when making it from scratch at the end of this article. It is pretty easy and quick, so I really have no excuse for using ready-rolled!

7. egg yolk or milk
This is to brush on to your pastry for a more golden brown finish. For this particular batch, I used a bit of milk.

Directions for rissole de boeuf

Preparing the filling

1. Heat your tablespoon of cooking oil in a frying pan. Add the beef mince and cook well, stirring frequently, until the meat is browned. Don’t rush this bit; make sure that meat is really well cooked for the best flavour – it should be a dark brown colour and will have reduced in size by the time you’re finished.

2. Push the beef to one side of the pan, and add your onion. Cook over a medium heat until the onion has softened.

3. Add the chopped thyme and mix the beef, onion and thyme together in the pan. Cook for another minute or two and then season with salt and pepper.

4. The filling is done! Remove from heat and set aside.

Creating the cases

5. Grease or line a baking tray.

6. Take your pastry (‘ready rolled’ or home-made) and roll out on a floured surface. Roll as thin as you can – 3 or 4mm is perfect for a nice, crisp, flaky result.

7. Using either a circle cutter or a ravioli press (around 7-8cm is a good size), cut circles from your pastry.

8. Brush the edge of the circle with a little bit of water, using a pastry brush.

9. Put a teaspoon or two (at most) of filling on to one side of each circle, then fold the pastry in half over the filling to make a semi-circle.

10. Use the tip of a fork to press down around the curved edge, where you wetted the pastry. This should help the two sides stick together and leave a pattern around the edge.

Alternatively, a ravioli press will make exactly the right size and shape (use a big one though). Dock, or prick, the surface of the rissole lightly with a fork.

Congratulations – you’ve made a rissole de boeuf! Well, okay, except for the cooking… don’t eat it yet…

Baking your rissoles de boeuf

11. Brush the rissoles with a little bit of egg yolk or milk for a golden finish to your pastry.

12. Place the beef rissoles on your baking tray and cook in the oven for around ten-fifteen minutes, until that pastry is golden brown. Keep an eye on them – once they start to brown, they can burn very quickly.

13. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. Or scoff while they’re hot if you really can’t wait, but don’t blame me if you burn your tongue.

So there you have it – beef rissoles! I don’t know why such a simple combination of flavours is so amazingly good, but it is!

Shortcrust Pastry Recipe

While I got the recipe for beef rissoles from my father, it was my mother and her old BeRo flour cookbook that taught me how to make pastry. Shortcrust pastry is pretty simple to make – the secret is not to handle it too much, make sure that everything stays cold, and cook it in a hot oven.

This is the shortcrust pastry recipe we use when we make it from scratch.

Shortcrust pastry ingredients

1. 220g / 8oz plain flour

2. 60g / 2oz lard
Yes, so 1950! But it makes for the best pastry.

3. 60g /2oz margarine
Use margarine sold in foil-wrapped blocks, or alternatively butter; not the soft stuff that comes in tubs.
Also, the weight of the fat (the lard and marg combined) should be half the weight of the flour; so if you’re scaling up or down, make sure to keep to this ratio.

4. a pinch of salt

5. 2 tbs really cold water

Shortcrust pastry directions

1. In a mixing bowl, add a pinch of salt to the flour.

2. dice the lard and margarine into small cubes, and add to the mixing bowl as well. Using your fingers, rub the fat into the flour until it reaches a breadcrumb consistency. Make sure your hands are cool and try not to handle too much. Let lots of air into the mix by rubbing bits of fat and flour above the bowl and letting it fall down into it.

3. Add the water a little bit at a time until the mix forms a stiff dough. Use a butter knife to mix with – it works better than a spoon.

4. Knead the dough lightly on a floured surface. Again, don’t overdo it – too much handling makes for tough pastry.

5. Dust your rolling pin with a bit of flour, and then lightly roll out your dough. You should roll dough away from you, always in the same direction (it’s just like uncorking wine – turn the pastry, not the rolling pin).

And that’s it! Keep your dough cool until you need it – I cover and pop mine in the fridge if not using straight away.

More from Rhubarb and Wren

Looking for more cuisine Mauricienne? Try our family’s chicken daube (Daube de Poulet) recipe for some classic Mauritian home-style comfort food.

Or check out my vegan version of the rissole – just as more-ish, twice as nice!

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