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Forcemeat for Turtle, As At the Bush, Bristol

A forcemeat mixture for turtle made with suet, veal or chicken, bread crumbs, herbs, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 for Turtle, As At the Bush, Bristol

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. In a bowl, combine suet, veal or chicken, bread crumbs, shallot or onion, salt, white pepper, nutmeg, mace, pennyroyal, parsley, and lemon-thyme.

  2. Beat the fresh eggs, yolks and whites separately, and add enough to the mixture to form a moist paste.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll the mixture into small balls.

  2. Boil the balls in fresh lard, adding them when the lard is boiling.

  3. Remove the balls when they are light brown and drain them before the fire.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fine fresh suet
Provides fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and rich as it cooks.
Fresh eggs
Bind the mixture into a moist paste that holds its shape when rolled.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat a light, tender body.
Veal or chicken
Adds meaty substance and texture to the forcemeat.
Shallot or onion
Adds savoury aroma and mild sweetness as it cooks.

The step that matters

Remove the balls when light brown. Frying in lard browns the outside quickly, so taking them out too late can overcook the interior and make them dry. Draining them well removes excess fat so they stay crisp rather than greasy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, bread, shallot, nutmeg, mace, parsley, lemon):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, bread, shallot, nutmeg, mace, parsley, lemon. 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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