Name: To Make Forcemeat
Ingredients: 3-4 ounces suet; 3-4 ounces veal (or chopped oysters for turkey); 2 ounces finely grated bread; parsley (minced finely); lemon peel (to taste); nutmeg (to taste); white pepper (to taste); coarse sea salt (to taste); 2-3 eggs (yolks only, well beaten)

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 ↓

To Make Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the suet and veal (or oysters) together.
Add the grated bread and minced parsley.
Season with lemon peel, nutmeg, white pepper, and salt.
Blend in the beaten egg yolks until well combined.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,062 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,375 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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

Suet: Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and rich as it cooks.
Veal: Provides the meaty body and structure of the forcemeat.
Grated bread: Absorbs fat and moisture, giving the mixture a lighter, softer texture.
Eggs: Egg yolks bind the ingredients together and help the mixture set when cooked.

The step that matters

Blend in the beaten egg yolks until well combined. Yolks are the binder. If they are not evenly mixed, the forcemeat can turn crumbly in some spots and loose or greasy in others, so the texture will not hold together when cooked.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, bread, parsley, lemon, nutmeg, egg):

Marjoramfits better
Thymefits better
Tarragonfits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, bread, parsley, lemon, 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.

More forcemeat recipes

Balls 27 Fish 25 Veal 24 Chestnut 18 Hare 17 Suet 13 See all 56 →

Brown Bread461 recipes

Lemon Sauce236 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

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To Make Forcemeat