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Force-meat Balls

A dish of veal and pork meatballs fried and added to soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: White pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Force-meat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meatballs

  1. In a bowl, combine veal, pork, and grated bread.

  2. Season with red or white pepper, parsley, mace, and sweet herbs.

  3. Add wine and eggs until the mixture is soft enough to form into balls.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the balls in hot fat until golden brown.

  2. Add the cooked balls to the soup.

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. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

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

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

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

  5. White pepper + parsleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,451 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

Veal
Provides the main meaty body and tender texture of the meatballs.
Pork
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the meatballs from drying out as they cook.
Grated bread
Absorbs liquid and gives the mixture a light, tender structure.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so it holds its shape when formed and fried.
Wine
Adds moisture and a mild acidity that lightly flavors the meat.

The step that matters

Adding wine and eggs to the mixture. The mixture must be soft enough to form into balls but not so wet that they fall apart in the hot fat. Add the liquid gradually and check the texture before shaping.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, bread, parsley, mace, wine, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, bread, parsley, mace, wine, 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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