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Forcemeat for Veal, Turkeys, Fowls, Hare, &C.

A finely minced meat mixture of ham, bacon, suet, lemon rind, herbs, bread crumbs, and eggs, shaped into balls and poached.

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 ↓

Forcemeat for Veal, Turkeys, Fowls, Hare, &C.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

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

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped ingredients with a seasoning of salt, cayenne, and pounded mace to taste.

  3. Add the bread crumbs and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and then add them to the mixture, blending thoroughly.

Shape and poach

  1. Mold the mixture into balls or desired shapes.

  2. Roll the formed quenelles in flour and poach them in boiling water with a little added salt.

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
Absorb moisture and give the mixture body so it holds its shape.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it set firm when poached.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and tender as it cooks.
Ham or bacon
Contributes savory, salty flavor and some fat to the mixture.

The step that matters

Blending in the eggs. The eggs must be beaten and mixed thoroughly so they distribute evenly; uneven binding can leave pockets that crumble or set unevenly during poaching.

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.

More forcemeat recipes

Balls 27Fish 25Veal 24Chestnut 18Hare 17Suet 13 See all 56 →

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