Skip to main content
Main

Godiveau, or Veal Forcemeat

A veal forcemeat made with bacon, bread crumbs, spices, onions, parsley, mushrooms or truffles, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Godiveau, or Veal Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Scrape the veal and fat bacon, then pound them fine in a mortar.

  2. Add the crumb of the French roll, mace, nutmeg, chopped onions, parsley, mushrooms or truffles, pepper, and salt.

  3. Mix all ingredients together with the eggs.

  4. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

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

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main lean meat body that forms the forcemeat's base.
Fat bacon
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and tender after cooking.
French roll
Soaks up moisture and gives the forcemeat a lighter, softer texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so it holds together and sets when cooked.

The step that matters

Pounding the veal and fat bacon fine. Finely broken-down meat and fat blend into a smooth, even forcemeat. Coarse pieces give a grainy texture and uneven fat distribution, while the fat must stay evenly dispersed to keep the mixture moist.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, nutmeg, onion, parsley, mushroom, pepper, egg):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, nutmeg, onion, parsley, mushroom, pepper, egg. 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.

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes