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Forcemeat for Game

A mixture of bacon, calf's liver, spices, egg yolks, and cream, used as stuffing for game.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Forcemeat for Game

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the bacon and calf's liver into convenient pieces and fry until half-cooked.

  2. Chop the fried bacon and liver into small pieces.

Make the forcemeat

  1. In a mortar, pound the chopped mixture with salt, pepper, and mace until well combined.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

  3. If the mixture is too dry, add a little cream.

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. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Mace + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  3. Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,375 recipes

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

  4. Liver + macetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together368 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fat bacon
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and gives it savoury flavour.
Calf's liver
Provides the main body and rich, earthy flavour of the forcemeat.
Egg yolks
Bind the pounded mixture together so it holds its shape when cooked.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness when the mixture is too dry.

The step that matters

Frying until half-cooked. Frying only partly cooks the bacon and liver, so they stay tender and moist once pounded and cooked again. Overcooking them now leaves the forcemeat dry and crumbly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper, egg, cream. 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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