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Chicken Forcemeat

A mixture of finely chopped chicken, bread crumbs, milk, butter, egg white, and seasonings used for meatloaf or meatballs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the chicken very fine and press it through a sieve.

  2. Cook the bread crumbs and milk together until a paste forms.

Combine

  1. Add the butter, egg white, and seasonings to the paste.

  2. Mix the paste with the chicken until well combined.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken meat
Provides the main protein body, which sets into a firm, sliceable mixture when cooked.
Egg white
Binds the mixture and helps it set firm when heated.
Bread crumbs
Absorb milk and add body, giving the forcemeat a softer, tender texture.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs into a paste, keeping the mixture moist.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Cook the bread crumbs and milk until a paste forms. Cooking the crumbs in milk gelatinizes their starch and makes a smooth, thick paste. Undercooked crumbs stay gritty and can make the mixture loose or uneven once combined with the chicken.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, meat, egg, bread, pepper, milk, butter):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, egg, bread, pepper, milk, butter. 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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