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Forcemeat-Balls in Soup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Forcemeat-Balls in Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil and mince the shallots, then mix with egg yolks in a mortar.

  2. Roll the mixture into small balls and dust with flour.

  3. Skim fat from the broth and heat it in a clean saucepan until boiling.

  4. Poach the balls in the boiling broth for 10 to 12 minutes.

  5. Season the broth with salt and cayenne before adding the balls.

  6. Optionally, add browned shallots and celery after the birds begin to stew.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Rice + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + celerytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together459 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Shallot + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together284 recipes

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

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

Swap the shallot

The recipe marks shallot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, beef, pepper, butter, rice, celery):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, beef, pepper, butter, rice, celery. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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