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Meat Cecils

Small meatballs made with chopped meat, egg yolks, butter, bread crumbs, parsley, onion, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Meat Cecils

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine chopped meat, egg yolks, butter, bread crumbs, parsley, scraped onion, salt, and pepper. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

  2. Heat the mixture in a pan over medium heat until warmed through.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cooled, form the mixture into small balls.

  2. Dip each ball in beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the balls in hot oil until golden brown.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 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

Chopped meat
Forms the body of the balls and provides the main savoury flavour.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it hold its shape while cooking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body, then form a crisp golden coating when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the meat mixture.

The step that matters

Fry the balls in hot oil until golden brown. Oil that is not hot enough lets the coating soak up fat and turn greasy before it browns, while overheated oil can scorch the crumbs before the meat inside is cooked through.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, egg, butter, bread, parsley, pepper. 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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