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Chestnut Forcemeat

Chestnut forcemeat is a savory mixture of chestnuts, veal gravy, bacon or butter, bread crumbs, spices, and egg yolks, formed into cakes and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chestnut Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chestnuts

  1. Remove the outer skin from the chestnuts and blanch them in hot water for 1-2 minutes.

  2. Peel the chestnuts and place them in cold water.

  3. Dry the chestnuts with a cloth and weigh them.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Stew the chestnuts gently in veal gravy for 15-20 minutes until covered.

  2. Drain the chestnuts and pound them smooth with half their weight of bacon or butter.

  3. Mix in the bread crumbs, lemon rind, salt, mace or nutmeg, cayenne, and egg yolks.

Shape and fry

  1. Mold the mixture into cakes using a knife, spoon, or fingers dipped in flour.

  2. Dredge more flour over the cakes and fry them slowly for 10-15 minutes until golden.

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

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

  2. Chestnut + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together381 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Chestnut + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together191 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Chestnuts
Provide the main bulk and starchy, soft body of the forcemeat.
Veal gravy
Stews the chestnuts, adding moisture and savory flavor throughout.
Bacon or fresh butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, spreadable texture when pounded.
Dry bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mixture body so it holds its shape.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together and help it set firmly during frying.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes slowly. Slow frying lets the interior heat through and set the egg yolks while the outside browns evenly. Higher heat would brown the flour coating before the centre is cooked.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chestnut, veal, butter, bread, lemon, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chestnut, veal, butter, bread, lemon, egg. 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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