Name: Forcemeat Balls
Ingredients: 1 pound beef suet, chopped; a little lemon peel, chopped; a little parsley, chopped; 1 basin of bread crumbs; pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; nutmeg, to taste; 2 egg yolks; flour, for rolling

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the mixture

In a bowl, combine chopped beef suet, lemon peel, parsley, bread crumbs, pepper, coarse sea salt, and nutmeg.
Add the yolks of 2 eggs and mix until moistened.

Shape and cook

Roll the mixture into small balls and coat them in flour.
Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) or fry until crisp.

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).
Parsley + peppertop 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).
Parsley + nutmegtop 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

Beef suet: Provides fat that keeps the balls moist and rich as they cook.
Bread crumbs: Give the mixture bulk and body so it holds together when shaped.
Egg yolks: Bind the mixture and add richness to hold the balls together.

“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.