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Puffs with Forcemeat of Vegetables

Puffs filled with a forcemeat of bacon, veal, parsley, shallots, and vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Puffs with Forcemeat of Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Make the forcemeat

  1. Combine bacon, veal, parsley, and shallots in a stewpan.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper, coarse sea salt, and beaten spice.

  3. Add French beans, asparagus, mushrooms, and lemon juice.

  4. Stew gently for 10 minutes.

  5. Transfer the mixture to a bowl.

  6. Add cream, breadcrumbs, and egg yolk and mix well.

Fill and fry

  1. Cut puff pastry into squares.

  2. Fill each square with the forcemeat, fold, and seal the edges.

  3. Fry the puffs in boiling lard until golden brown.

  4. Drain excess oil.

Serve

  1. Serve with sauce made from cullis, lemon pickle, and ketchup.

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

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

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Beans + asparagustop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together292 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Shallot + asparagustop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 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

Egg yolk
Binds the forcemeat so it holds together when filled and fried.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture from the vegetables and meat, giving the filling a firmer texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling soft and tender.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the forcemeat base.
Puff pastry
Its layers puff and crisp when fried, forming the outer casing.

The step that matters

Frying the puffs in boiling lard until golden brown. The oil must be hot enough to crisp the pastry quickly; if it is too cool, the puffs absorb more fat and turn greasy before the layers set.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, parsley, shallot, pepper, asparagus, mushroom, lemon):

  1. Chestnutfits about as well
  2. Lentilsfits about as well
  3. Beansthe original
  4. Chickpeafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, parsley, shallot, pepper, asparagus, mushroom, lemon. 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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