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Oyster Forcemeat

A forcemeat made from oysters, bread, suet or butter, herbs, spices, and eggs, used as a garnish for boiled or roast turkey.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oyster Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the gills from the oysters and cut them into quarters.

  2. In a bowl, combine the oysters, grated bread, and shredded suet or butter.

  3. Season the mixture with herbs, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Bind and shape

  1. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  2. Form the mixture into balls if desired, for use as a garnish.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  4. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and texture of the forcemeat.
Grated bread
Absorbs liquid and gives the forcemeat body.
Suet or butter
Adds fat, keeping the forcemeat moist and rich.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so it holds its shape.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, bread, butter, pepper, 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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