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To Make Forcemeat for an Artificial Turtle

A forcemeat made from veal, anchovies, spices, lemon, and Madeira wine, formed into balls and simmered.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Make Forcemeat for an Artificial Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the forcemeat

  1. Beat the fat and lean veal with the anchovies in a marble mortar until fine.

  2. Season with mace, cayenne, salt, parsley, sweet marjoram, lemon juice, and Madeira wine. Mix well and form into small balls.

  3. Dust the balls with fine flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Add them to your dish and simmer for about 30 minutes before serving.

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal fat
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the forcemeat tender rather than dry.
Lean veal
Provides the main body and structure that holds the balls together.
Anchovies
Adds savoury depth that enriches the flavour without a fishy taste.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and aroma, and moistens the mixture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich meat.

The step that matters

Beating the fat and veal until fine. Thorough beating breaks the meat and fat into a smooth, even paste. Fat that stays in lumps melts unevenly during simmering, leaving greasy spots and a crumbly, uneven texture.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, parsley, marjoram, lemon, madeira wine, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, parsley, marjoram, lemon, madeira wine, flour. 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.

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