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Forcemeat for Turkeys

A forcemeat mixture for stuffing turkeys, made from veal, pork, sweetbread, bread, butter, spices, lemon rind, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Forcemeat for Turkeys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Mince the veal and pork together finely.

  2. Cut the parboiled veal sweetbread into pieces and mix with the minced meats.

  3. Add the soaked bread and warm butter to the mixture.

  4. Flavor with nutmeg, salt, pepper, and grated lemon rind.

Bind and stuff

  1. Bind the mixture with the beaten eggs and fill the turkey.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture so it holds together when cooked.
Bread
Soaked bread adds moisture and a tender, light texture to the forcemeat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the forcemeat tender.
Veal
Provides the main body and mild flavor of the forcemeat.
Pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the meat base.
Veal sweetbread
Contributes a delicate, rich texture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Bind with the beaten eggs. Eggs set when heated and hold the minced meats and bread together. Adding them to a mixture that is too warm or overworked can make the forcemeat dense or uneven, so mix gently until just combined.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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