Name: Forcemeat Dressing with Two Eggs
Ingredients: 6 ounces bread crumbs; rind of ½ lemon; 1 tablespoon savory herbs; 3 ounces suet or butter; 2 eggs; pepper to taste; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; a little grated nutmeg

Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 Dressing with Two Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, lemon rind, savory herbs, and suet or butter.
Add the eggs, pepper, salt, and nutmeg; mix well.

Shape and cook

Shape the mixture into balls or a loaf as desired.
Cook in boiling water or broth until firm.

Serve

Serve with your choice of meat.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs: Provide the bulk that gives the dressing its body and soaks up fat and moisture.
Eggs: Bind the mixture and set when cooked, holding the shape together.
Suet or butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist texture.

The step that matters

Cook in boiling water or broth until firm. Eggs set as they heat, so the dressing must be cooked just until firm. Overcooking can make it tough and rubbery, while undercooking leaves it loose and unbound.

“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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

Lemon Sauce236 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

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Forcemeat Dressing with Two Eggs