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Forcemeat Balls

Forcemeat balls are small meatballs made from pounded veal or mutton, minced beef suet, bread crumbs, bacon, spices, and egg yolk, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Forcemeat Balls

Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Forcemeat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the pounded veal or mutton, minced beef suet, and grated bread-crumbs.

  2. Add the chopped fat bacon, salt, pepper, and nutmeg; mix well.

  3. Bind the mixture with the beaten egg yolk.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape into small balls.

  2. Fry 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.

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.

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

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

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

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  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

Pounded veal or mutton
Provides the main meaty body and bulk of the forcemeat.
Minced beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the mixture moist and tender as it cooks.
Grated bread-crumbs
Absorbs moisture and gives the balls a light, tender structure.
Chopped fat bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that carries through the balls.
Beaten egg yolk
Binds the mixture together so the balls hold their shape.

The step that matters

Bind the mixture with the beaten egg yolk. Too much or too little yolk changes how firmly the mixture holds together. Mixing it in well until evenly distributed helps the balls hold their shape while frying without becoming dense or crumbly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, beef, bread, 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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