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Beef Forcemeat

A seasoned beef forcemeat mixture for pies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram 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 ↓

Beef Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef, suet, and bacon into small pieces.

  2. In a bowl, combine the meat with thyme, marjoram, allspice, and mace.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Pound the mixture in a mortar until it forms a paste.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  3. Marjoram + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 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

Lean beef
Provides the main body of the forcemeat and its meaty flavour.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and tender as it cooks.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour, helping keep the mixture moist.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so it holds its shape.

The step that matters

Pounding to a paste. Pounding breaks the meat and fat into fine, evenly sized particles. This helps the mixture bind smoothly with the eggs and gives a uniform, tender texture rather than a coarse, crumbly one.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, thyme, marjoram, allspice, egg, pepper):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, thyme, marjoram, allspice, egg, pepper. 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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