Name: Forcemeat for Turkey
Ingredients: 4 oz stale bread (crumbed); ½ oz lemon rind (grated); ¼ oz mixed savory herbs (minced, ⅔ parsley, ⅓ thyme); ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg; ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ to ½ teaspoon black pepper or cayenne; 2 oz butter (cut into small bits); 1 egg yolk

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Forcemeat for Turkey

Ingredients

4 oz stale bread (crumbed)
½ oz lemon rind (grated)
¼ oz mixed savory herbs (minced, ⅔ parsley, ⅓ thyme)
¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
¼ to ½ teaspoon black pepper or cayenne
2 oz butter (cut into small bits)
1 egg yolk

Directions

Grate stale bread into fine crumbs and mix with lemon rind, herbs, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.
Add butter bits and egg yolk, then mix thoroughly with your fingers until smooth.
Use fresh lemon rind to avoid unpleasant flavors.
For a large turkey, increase the quantity by one-half.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,973 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread: Forms the bulk of the stuffing and absorbs moisture from the other ingredients.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture, and helps the forcemeat hold together as it cools.
Egg yolk: Binds the crumbs and fat into a cohesive, smooth mixture.
Lemon rind: Adds bright aromatic flavor that lifts the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Mix the butter and egg yolk until smooth. Cold butter must be worked evenly through the crumbs with the yolk so the forcemeat binds. Unevenly mixed fat leaves greasy pockets and a crumbly texture.

Swap the nutmeg

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

Marjoramfits better
Sagefits better
Tarragonfits better
Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, lemon, parsley, thyme, pepper, butter, 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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

Lemon Sauce236 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

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Forcemeat for Turkey