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Fish Forcemeat

A mixture of fish, butter, breadcrumbs, eggs, shallot, lemon peel, parsley, salt, and cayenne pepper, blended into a smooth forcemeat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Fish Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a mortar, combine the fish, butter, bread crumbs, hard-boiled egg yolks, shallot, lemon peel, and parsley.

  2. Pound the mixture until smooth and well mixed.

  3. Season with salt and Cayenne pepper to taste.

  4. Add the yolk and white of one egg and mix well.

  5. The forcemeat is now ready for use.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 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

Fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the forcemeat.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, moist texture to the mixture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat body and a light structure.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and helps it set when cooked.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a fine, crumbly texture to the forcemeat.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, bread, egg, lemon, parsley, pepper):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, bread, egg, lemon, parsley, 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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