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Prepare a Forcemeat

A forcemeat mixture of bacon, veal, ham, and spices used as a filling for pies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,264 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Prepare a Forcemeat

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Remove the rind, gristle, bone, and brown parts from the bacon.

  2. Mince the bacon and veal very finely, then mix with spiced salt in a mortar until it forms a stiff paste.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line a plain oval pie mould with short paste.

  2. Layer one-fourth of the forcemeat at the bottom of the mould.

  3. Add a layer of rashers of ham, then another layer of forcemeat, followed by pieces of veal.

  4. Sprinkle with spiced salt, then add another layer of forcemeat and rashers of ham.

  5. Cover with three rashers of fat bacon and a bay leaf, then cover with paste.

Bake

  1. Bake for 2 hours in a 350°F (175°C) oven, covering the top with buttered paper.

  2. Check doneness with a skewer.

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. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fat bacon
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the forcemeat juicy as it cooks.
Veal
Provides the lean meat body that gives the forcemeat its structure.
Rashers of ham
Adds savory, cured flavor to the layers inside the pie.

The step that matters

Mixing the forcemeat to a stiff paste. Mincing the bacon and veal very finely and working them with salt into a stiff paste helps the meat bind and hold together when sliced. Coarse pieces would crumble and release juices.

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

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