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To Make the Forcemeat Balls

A dish of brain-based meatballs seasoned with pepper, salt, sage, and bread crumbs, fried and added to soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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To Make the Forcemeat Balls

Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Make the Forcemeat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brains

  1. Remove the brains from the calf's head before boiling.

  2. Parboil the brains after washing and soaking them in warm water, then remove the skin.

Shape and coat

  1. Pound the brains with a spoon and mix in the nepaul pepper, salt, and powdered sage.

  2. Roll the mixture into balls, dip them in the beaten egg, and then coat with bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the balls in clarified fat until brown, then drain.

  2. Add the balls to your soup.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sage + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sage + eggtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Brains
Form the soft, bulk base of the meatballs that binds with the other ingredients.
Beaten egg
Helps the bread crumb coating adhere and sets to form a crisp outer layer when fried.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust during frying.
Powdered sage
Adds a savory, aromatic flavor to the meatballs.

The step that matters

Frying the coated balls until brown. The egg and bread crumb coating only becomes crisp and browned in hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs grease and turns soggy, and the balls may not cook through evenly.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, egg, bread. 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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