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Forcemeat for Meat Pies or Ragouts

A forcemeat mixture of ham, veal, beef suet, onion, parsley, cayenne, salt, lemon peel, bread crumbs, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Forcemeat for Meat Pies or Ragouts

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pound the chopped ham, veal, and beef suet together in a mortar.

  2. Add the onion, parsley, cayenne, salt, lemon peel, and bread crumbs, and mix well.

  3. Add the raw eggs and combine thoroughly to form a mass.

  4. Optionally add an anchovy or oysters for extra flavor.

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

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it set into a firm mass when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat a lighter, softer body.
Beef suet
Adds fat, which keeps the forcemeat moist and rich in texture.
Ham
Contributes savory, salty flavor and a firm meaty bite.
Veal
Provides a mild, delicate meat base that blends into the mixture.

The step that matters

Combine the raw eggs thoroughly. Eggs are the binder that holds the chopped meats and crumbs together. If they are not fully mixed in, the forcemeat can stay crumbly in some spots and set unevenly when cooked.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, beef, parsley, pepper, lemon, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, beef, parsley, pepper, lemon, bread. 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.

More forcemeat recipes

Balls 27Fish 25Veal 24Chestnut 18Hare 17Suet 13 See all 56 →

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