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Puffs with Forcemeat of Vegetables

A puff pastry square filled with a vegetable forcemeat of bacon, veal, parsley, shallots, beans, asparagus, mushrooms, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Puffs with Forcemeat of Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Cook the bacon and veal with parsley, shallots, pepper, salt, and mixed spice for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the French beans, asparagus, mushrooms, and lemon juice.

  3. Stew gently.

  4. Pound the mixture in a mortar with cream, bread crumbs, and egg yolk until smooth.

Assemble and fry

  1. Roll out puff pastry to ½ inch thick.

  2. Cut the pastry into squares.

  3. Fill each square with the forcemeat.

  4. Fold the squares.

  5. Seal the edges with a jagged cutter.

  6. Fry in boiling lard until golden brown.

  7. Drain the puff pastries.

Serve

  1. Serve with sauce.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Beans + asparagustop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together292 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Shallot + asparagustop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Binds the pounded filling so it holds together and sets smooth.
Bread crumbs
Absorbs moisture and gives the forcemeat body and a firmer texture.
Puff pastry
Its layers puff and crisp when fried, forming a light, flaky shell.
Bacon
Its fat adds richness and savoury flavour to the forcemeat.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the pounded filling smooth and tender.

The step that matters

Seal the edges with a jagged cutter. Sealing the edges tightly keeps the filling inside while frying. Gaps let hot lard leak in and make the pastry greasy and the filling escape.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, parsley, shallot, pepper, asparagus, mushroom, lemon):

  1. Chestnutfits about as well
  2. Lentilsfits about as well
  3. Beansthe original
  4. Chickpeafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, parsley, shallot, pepper, asparagus, mushroom, lemon. 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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