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Forced Meat

A forcemeat mixture of 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 meat

  1. Boil veal, suet, and bacon for 30 minutes.

  2. Cool in cold water briefly.

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

Make the forcemeat

  1. In a marble mortar, combine minced meat 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
Provides the lean meat that forms the body of the forcemeat.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and tender after cooking.
Fat bacon
Contributes extra fat and savory flavor to the meat mixture.
Fine bread crumbs
Soak up milk and help bind the mixture while keeping it light.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it set firm when cooked.

The step that matters

Pound to a fine paste. Thorough pounding breaks the meat into a smooth, evenly bound texture. Coarse pieces give a crumbly forcemeat that does not hold together well.

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.

More forcemeat recipes

Balls 27Fish 25Veal 24Chestnut 18Hare 17Suet 13 See all 56 →

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