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Force Meat Balls

A dish of small meatballs made with finely chopped meat, onion, parsley, egg, and breadcrumbs, fried or boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Force Meat Balls

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Force Meat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped meat or poultry with salt, pepper, onion, and parsley.

  2. Add the beaten egg to bind the mixture.

  3. Form the mixture into small balls.

Coat and cook

  1. Dip each ball in egg, then roll in breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry in hot oil until golden brown, or cook in boiling water if preferred.

Serve

  1. Add to soup just 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.

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

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat or poultry
Forms the main body of the meatballs and provides their savory flavor.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the meatballs hold their shape during cooking.
Breadcrumbs
Form a coating that browns when fried and helps keep the outside crisp.

The step that matters

Frying in hot oil. If the oil is not hot enough, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy rather than browning. Hot oil sets the crust quickly, helping the meatballs hold together and turn golden.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, parsley, 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.

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