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Forcemeat of Chestnuts for

A forcemeat made from bacon, veal, chestnuts, butter, breadcrumbs, spices, and egg yolks for stuffing a bird.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Forcemeat of Chestnuts for

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Mince the bacon and veal finely.

  2. Season the mince with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Pound the seasoned mince in a mortar until smooth.

Prepare the chestnuts

  1. Roast and peel the chestnuts.

Stuff the bird

  1. Stuff the roasted chestnuts into the bird with the forcemeat.

Make the chestnut forcemeat

  1. Roast a pint of chestnuts.

  2. Peel the roasted chestnuts.

  3. Simmer half a pound of chestnuts in veal gravy for 20 minutes.

  4. Drain the chestnuts and let them cool.

  5. Pound the cooled chestnuts in a mortar with butter, bread crumbs, lemon rind, mace, pepper, salt, and cayenne.

  6. Bind the mixture with the unbeaten yolks of the eggs.

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

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

  2. Nutmeg + chestnuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together180 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  3. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  5. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Bacon
Supplies fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and richly flavoured.
Veal
Lean meat that forms the body of the forcemeat once pounded smooth.
Chestnuts
Starchy bulk that gives the forcemeat a soft, floury texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the pounded mixture smooth and moist.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mixture hold its shape.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together and set it lightly when cooked.

The step that matters

Bind with the unbeaten yolks. The mixture should be cool before the yolks go in, since heat can scramble them and make the forcemeat grainy. Once cool, the yolk proteins bind the pounded mixture evenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, nutmeg, chestnut, butter, bread, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, nutmeg, chestnut, butter, bread, lemon. 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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