Name: Mr. Cookes Forcemeat for Ducks or Geese
Ingredients: 3 large onions; 1½ cups bread crumbs; 3 tablespoons butter; 2 teaspoons minced sage; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt

Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mr. Cookes Forcemeat for Ducks or Geese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Boil the onions for 10 to 15 minutes, then press out the water and chop them finely.
Mix the chopped onions with bread crumbs, butter, sage, pepper, and salt.
Optionally, add finely shredded boiled liver and bind the mixture with 1 or 2 egg yolks.

Stuff

Stuff the mixture into the body of the goose or duck.

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.

Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,628 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions: Provide moisture and sweetness, and their pressed-dry texture gives the stuffing body.
Bread crumbs: Absorb the butter and onion juices, giving the forcemeat a soft, moist structure.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Sage: Contributes a savory, aromatic herbal flavor.

The step that matters

Boil and press the onions dry. Onions hold a lot of water. If they are not boiled and pressed well, the excess liquid makes the bread crumb mixture soggy and loose, so it may not hold together in the bird.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, sage, pepper):

Capsicumfits better
Shallotfits better
Carrotfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, sage, pepper. 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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Mr. Cookes Forcemeat for Ducks or Geese