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Forced Meats

A forcemeat made from veal, beef suet, eggs, and spices, used in ragouts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Forced Meats

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal and suet

  1. Skin and remove nerves from the veal, then mince it finely.

  2. Mince the beef suet and combine it with the veal in a mortar until it forms a paste.

  3. Add salt, pepper, and fine spices, mixing well.

Bind the mixture

  1. Incorporate the first egg, then the second, and finally the third egg, mixing thoroughly.

  2. Add a tablespoon of water, mixing in more as needed until the mixture is paste-like.

  3. Dust a table with flour, form a small ball, and test it in boiling soup; it should yield under pressure.

  4. If too firm, add another egg; if too soft, add a little water.

Shape and poach

  1. Roll the mixture into a convenient size, poach, drain, and keep ready for use in ragouts.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the lean, tender body of the forcemeat.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and tender after cooking.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when poached.

The step that matters

Testing the ball in boiling soup. The test shows whether the binding is right before poaching. Too much egg makes the forcemeat rubbery and too little water leaves it crumbly, so a small test ball lets the cook adjust with another egg or water first.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, beef, pepper, egg, flour):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Turmericfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, beef, pepper, egg, flour. 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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