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Forced Meat

A paste made by mincing veal, suet, bacon, bread crumbs, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Forced Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meats

  1. Boil the veal, suet, and bacon over a good fire for 30 minutes.

  2. Cool in cold water briefly.

  3. Mince the meats separately, then together until fine.

Make the forced meat

  1. In a marble mortar, combine the minced meats with soaked bread crumbs, beaten eggs, pepper, salt, nutmeg, onion, and parsley.

  2. Pound all ingredients to a fine paste and set aside for use.

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

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

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

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

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the lean body of the meat mixture, giving it its main structure and flavour.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the mixture moist and tender as it cooks.
Fat bacon
Contributes fat and smoky savour, keeping the forcemeat from drying out.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when cooked.
Fine bread crumbs
Soak up liquid and lighten the texture, helping the paste stay tender.

The step that matters

Pound to a fine paste. Thorough pounding breaks the meat fibres and distributes fat and egg evenly, producing a smooth, cohesive forcemeat rather than a coarse, crumbly one.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, bread, milk, egg, pepper, nutmeg, parsley. 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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