Skip to main content
Main

Forcemeat for Veal or Turkey Roasted

A mixture of suet, bread, herbs, and eggs used as stuffing for veal or turkey.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Forcemeat for Veal or Turkey Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the suet and grated bread in a bowl.

  2. Add the parsley, marjoram, thyme, lemon peel, onion, pepper, and salt, then mix well.

  3. Add 1 beaten egg to bind the mixture.

  4. If the mixture is too dry, add another beaten egg until it forms a consistent mass.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and tender as it cooks.
Grated bread
Absorbs moisture and gives the forcemeat body and a light texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so it holds together when shaped and cooked.

The step that matters

Adding the egg. Eggs set when heated and hold the crumbs and fat together. Add them gradually, since too much liquid makes the mixture wet and loose, while too little leaves it crumbly and dry.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, parsley, marjoram, lemon, thyme, pepper, 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes