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Forcemeat for a Fillet

A forcemeat mixture for stuffing a fillet, made with salt pork, bread crumbs, spices, eggs, and flavored with lemon, Harvey's sauce, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 125 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Forcemeat for a Fillet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fillet

  1. Remove the knuckle and bone from the fillet.

  2. Fill the cavity with a mixture of salt pork, bread crumbs, nutmeg, mace, marjoram, savory, white pepper, and eggs.

  3. Mix boiling water with lemon juice and Harvey's sauce. Pour the mixture over the meat.

Fry the stuffing balls

  1. Fry the stuffing in small balls.

  2. Garnish the dish with lemon slices and browned balls.

Roast and make the gravy

  1. Roast a large fillet (14‑15 pounds) for 3 hours or a smaller one for 2 hours, basting with butter.

  2. Add 1 pint of water to the dripping pan for gravy.

  3. Thicken the gravy with flour.

  4. Mix in wine and Harvey's sauce.

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. Marjoram + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together51 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the stuffing so it holds together when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the stuffing and absorb the liquids.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the stuffing.
Flour
Thickens the gravy from the pan juices.
Butter
Adds fat and browning when basting the roast.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy with flour. Flour must be cooked in fat or liquid long enough to lose its raw taste and to thicken smoothly; adding it to hot liquid without mixing well causes lumps.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, bread, nutmeg, mace, marjoram, summer savory, egg):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, bread, nutmeg, mace, marjoram, summer savory, 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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