Skip to main content
Main

Forcemeat for Veal, Turkey, Fowls, or Rabbits

A mixture of veal, ham, suet, bread crumbs, herbs, and egg yolk used as a stuffing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Forcemeat for Veal, Turkey, Fowls, or Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine the scraped veal, ham, suet, and bread crumbs.

  2. Add the chopped parsley, salt, pepper, and nutmeg or mace.

  3. Pound the mixture well until combined.

  4. Add the egg yolk to bind the mixture together.

  5. If desired, mix in the finely chopped parboiled onion and sweet herbs.

  6. Leave room for the stuffing to swell.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the lean meat base that gives the forcemeat its body and bite.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and tender as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and fat, giving the mixture a lighter, more tender texture.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture together so it holds its shape when cooked.

The step that matters

Pound the mixture well until combined. Thorough pounding breaks the meat and fat into a fine, uniform paste. Uneven mixing leaves pockets of fat or lumps of meat, which cook unevenly and give a coarse, crumbly texture.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, beef, bread, parsley, pepper, egg):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, beef, bread, parsley, pepper, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More forcemeat recipes

Balls 27Fish 25Veal 24Chestnut 18Hare 17Suet 13 See all 56 →

You might also like

Beef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes