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Forcemeat

A mixture of shredded ham or gammon, veal or fowl, beef suet, onion, parsley, lemon peel, spices, bread crumbs, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shred the ham or gammon, veal or fowl, and beef suet.

  2. Finely chop the onion, parsley, and lemon peel.

Mix and bind

  1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl, adding salt, nutmeg, mace, and pepper.

  2. Pound the mixture in a mortar until well blended.

  3. Bind the mixture with 1 or 2 beaten and strained 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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mixture body and a light texture.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the mixture moist and tender.
Ham or gammon
Contributes savoury, salty flavour to the mixture.

The step that matters

Pound the mixture until well blended. Thorough pounding breaks the meat and fat into a fine, even paste so the forcemeat cooks evenly and holds together smoothly rather than crumbling or feeling grainy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, beef, onion, parsley, lemon, nutmeg. 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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