Name: Forcemeat Balls
Ingredients: 2 cups breadcrumbs; 2 tablespoons butter or finely chopped suet; 1 teaspoon mixed herbs; grated rind of 1 lemon; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon nutmeg; 2 teaspoons chopped parsley (optional); 1 egg yolk

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 Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, combine breadcrumbs and butter or suet.
Add mixed herbs, lemon rind, cayenne pepper, salt, nutmeg, and parsley.
Mix in the egg yolk to bind the mixture.

Shape and use

Form the mixture into small balls.
Boil the balls for use in thick soups or as stuffing.

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,062 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Breadcrumbs: Form the bulk of the mixture and absorb the butter or suet for a soft body.
Butter or suet: Adds fat that keeps the balls moist and tender as they cook.
Egg yolk: Binds the mixture together so the balls hold their shape.
Lemon rind: Adds bright aroma and citrus flavour to the balls.

“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.