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Force-meat for Veal, Turkeys, Fowls, Hare, Etc.

A seasoned meat mixture of ham or bacon, suet, lemon rind, herbs, bread crumbs, and eggs, formed into balls and fried or baked.

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

Force-meat for Veal, Turkeys, Fowls, Hare, Etc.

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Shred the ham or bacon and chop the suet, lemon peel, and herbs very finely.

  2. Add salt, cayenne, and mace to taste, and mix thoroughly with the bread-crumbs.

  3. Beat and strain the eggs, then combine them with the other ingredients.

Cook

  1. Form the mixture into balls and fry in boiling lard until golden brown, or bake on a tin for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 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

Bread-crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the mixture together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set on cooking to hold the balls together.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the mixture moist and rich as it cooks.
Ham or bacon
Adds savoury, salty flavour and some fat to the mixture.

The step that matters

Form the mixture into balls and fry or bake until golden brown. The mixture is held together only by egg and crumbs, so it can crumble if loosely formed or cooked too roughly. Even, moderate heat sets the egg and browns the surface without drying the interior.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, lemon, parsley, bread, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, lemon, parsley, bread, 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.

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