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Forcemeat Balls

A forcemeat ball made with breadcrumbs, potatoes, milk, eggs, nutmeg, onions, spinach, parsley, lettuce, and wheatmeal, boiled in soup or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Forcemeat Balls

Why it works: Spinach and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 427 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Forcemeat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Soak the breadcrumbs in the milk.

  2. Add the potatoes and beaten eggs to the soaked breadcrumbs.

  3. Mix in the chopped vegetables and nutmeg.

  4. Add enough wheatmeal to form a fairly firm paste.

Shape and cook

  1. Shape the mixture into balls.

  2. Drop the balls into boiling soup or water.

  3. Boil for 5 to 10 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Spinach + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Nutmeg + spinachtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Breadcrumbs
Soak in milk to form a soft base that binds the mixture.
Potatoes
Add starch and moisture, helping the balls hold together while staying tender.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the balls set firm when cooked.
Wheatmeal
Adds body to the paste so the balls keep their shape in boiling liquid.

The step that matters

Forming a fairly firm paste. If the paste is too wet, the balls can fall apart in boiling liquid. Adding wheatmeal gradually until the mixture holds its shape helps the balls stay intact while the starch and egg set during cooking.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, milk, egg, nutmeg, spinach, parsley, lettuce):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, egg, nutmeg, spinach, parsley, lettuce. 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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