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Forcemeat for Hare

A forcemeat made from finely minced mushrooms, bread crumbs, butter, spices, lemon rind, and egg yolks, used as a filling for boiled fowls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Forcemeat for Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Make the forcemeat

  1. Finely mince the mushrooms and mix with bread crumbs and butter.

  2. Add salt, cayenne, mace, nutmeg, lemon rind, and egg yolks.

  3. Mix thoroughly and beat well in a mortar.

Cook and serve

  1. Form into small balls and poach for 5 to 6 minutes or fry for 6 to 8 minutes.

  2. Use as a filling for boiled fowls, partridges, or turkeys.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat body so it holds its shape.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together and help it set when cooked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the mixture moist and tender.
Mushrooms
Contribute moisture and savory flavor to the forcemeat.

The step that matters

Beat well in a mortar. Thorough mixing spreads the egg yolks and fat evenly through the crumbs, so the forcemeat binds well and cooks to a uniform texture rather than crumbling or turning patchy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, pepper, nutmeg, lemon, egg, bread. 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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