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Mushroom Forcemeat

A mushroom forcemeat made with mushrooms, butter, spices, breadcrumbs, egg yolks, and gravy, formed into balls and poached or fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Mushroom Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Peel the mushrooms and cut off the stems.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan.

  3. Simmer the mushrooms with mace and cayenne over low heat.

  4. Drain the mushrooms on a slanted dish to remove moisture.

  5. Let the drained mushrooms cool.

  6. Mince the cooled mushrooms.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Mix the minced mushrooms with bread crumbs, salt, cayenne, mace, nutmeg, butter, and egg yolks.

  2. Add enough mushroom gravy to achieve the right consistency.

  3. Form the mixture into balls.

Cook and serve

  1. Poach the balls, or fry and serve with roast fowl or minced veal.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main flavor and bulk of the forcemeat once simmered and minced.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mixture body so it holds its shape.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it set when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a tender texture and flavor.
Mushroom gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor to reach the right consistency.

The step that matters

Drain the mushrooms before mixing. Mushrooms release a lot of water when cooked. If it is not drained and cooled well, the mixture becomes too wet to hold its shape and may turn soggy or fall apart when poached or fried.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, butter, pepper, bread, nutmeg, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, pepper, bread, nutmeg, 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.

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