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Forcemeat, to Force Fowls or Meat

A mixture of shredded ham, veal, fowl, beef suet, onion, parsley, lemon peel, spices, bread crumbs, and eggs, used for patties or stuffing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Forcemeat, to Force Fowls or Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shred the ham, veal, fowl, beef suet, onion, parsley, and lemon peel.

  2. Add salt, nutmeg or mace, white pepper or cayenne, and bread crumbs.

  3. Pound the mixture in a mortar until well combined.

Bind and use

  1. Bind the mixture with 1 or 2 beaten eggs.

  2. Use the forcemeat for patties or to stuff fowls or meat.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture together so it holds its shape when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body, giving the forcemeat a softer, lighter texture.
Beef suet
Adds fat, which keeps the forcemeat moist and rich as it cooks.
Ham or gammon
Contributes savoury, salty flavour to the mixture.

The step that matters

Pound the mixture in a mortar until well combined. Pounding breaks down the meats and fat into a fine, even paste. Unevenly mixed forcemeat can cook up crumbly in some spots and greasy in others, and the fat must be evenly distributed to keep it moist.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, beef, onion, parsley, lemon, nutmeg):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, beef, onion, parsley, lemon, nutmeg. 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.

More forcemeat recipes

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

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