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Forcemeat Balls, for Jugged Hare

Forcemeat balls made with hare liver, bacon, butter, herbs, and port wine, served as a component of jugged hare.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Forcemeat Balls, for Jugged Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ingredients

  1. Grate the stale bread finely.

  2. Pare and finely chop the lemon peel.

  3. Chop the parsley and thyme finely.

  4. Boil the liver for 3 minutes and chop finely.

Make the mixture

  1. Add the rasped bacon.

  2. Break the butter into small pieces and add.

  3. Chop the escalots finely and add.

  4. Beat the egg yolk lightly and add.

  5. Mix all ingredients until smooth.

  6. Add port wine if desired and mix well.

Fry and serve

  1. Form the mixture into balls and fry in butter.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the mixture together.
Liver of hare
Adds rich, meaty flavour and substance to the forcemeat.
Rasped bacon
Contributes salty, savoury fat that flavours the mixture and browns when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour, and browns the balls when fried.
Egg yolk
Binds the ingredients together so the mixture holds its shape.

The step that matters

Form the mixture into balls and fry in butter. The mixture is soft and bound only by egg yolk, so it can fall apart. Chilling it before shaping helps it hold, and frying over moderate heat lets the outside brown before the centre dries out.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, lemon, parsley, thyme, liver, butter, 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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