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Meat Balls

Meatballs made from hamburger and pork sausage, baked in stewed tomatoes with mixed vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Meat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the hamburger, pork sausage, bread crumbs, egg, onion, salt, pepper, and paprika thoroughly.

  2. Shape the mixture into 8 balls, about the size of an orange.

Cook

  1. Strain the stewed tomatoes and add salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne, and the mixed vegetables.

  2. In a large kettle, place the meatballs and pour the tomato mixture over them.

  3. Cook gently over low heat for 1 ½ hours, adding boiling water as needed to maintain liquid level.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Hamburger
Provides the main meaty body and rich flavor of the meatballs.
Pork sausage
Adds fat and seasoning, keeping the meatballs moist and tender as they cook.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the meatballs hold together while keeping them tender.
Egg
Binds the meat mixture so the meatballs keep their shape during simmering.
Stewed tomatoes
Form the acidic, liquid base of the sauce that the meatballs and vegetables simmer in.

The step that matters

Cook gently over low heat. Simmering gently keeps the liquid below a hard boil, so the meatballs cook through and stay tender rather than tightening and drying out. Adding boiling water as needed keeps the liquid level steady so the tomato sauce does not reduce and scorch.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, bread, egg, onion, pepper, tomato, carrot. 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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