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Forcemeat for Pheasant

A forcemeat mixture for stuffing pheasant, made with livers, ham, truffles or mushrooms, parsley, shallot, butter, pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Forcemeat for Pheasant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the livers

  1. Ensure the livers are sound and the gall is removed.

  2. Parboil the livers for 5 minutes.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Pound the livers in a mortar with the grated ham, truffles or mushrooms, parsley, and shallot.

  2. Season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  3. Blend in the butter and use the mixture to stuff the pheasant.

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

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

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

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

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Livers
Provide the main body and rich flavor of the forcemeat.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the texture and helps the mixture feel smooth and moist.
Cooked ham
Adds savory flavor and firm texture to the pounded mixture.
Truffles or mushrooms
Add earthy aroma and depth of flavor.
Shallot
Adds mild aromatic sharpness that supports the savory flavor.

The step that matters

Parboil the livers for 5 minutes. Brief parboiling firms the livers so they pound into a smooth mixture rather than a loose paste. Overcooking makes them grainy and dry, while undercooking leaves them soft and hard to blend.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, ham, truffle, parsley, shallot, pepper, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, ham, truffle, parsley, shallot, pepper, butter. 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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