Skip to main content
Main

Fo7'cemeat for a Pheasant or Fowl

A savory mixture of boiled chicken livers, lean ham, parsley, shallot, pepper, nutmeg, truffles or mushrooms, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fo7'cemeat for a Pheasant or Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mince the boiled livers and ham together.

  2. Add parsley, shallot, pepper, nutmeg, and pound in a mortar.

  3. Incorporate truffles (or mushrooms) and butter until well mixed.

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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken livers
Provide the main body and rich, savoury flavour of the forcemeat.
Lean ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a firm, meaty texture to the forcemeat.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, moist texture and rich mouthfeel.
Truffles or mushrooms
Contribute earthy aroma and flavour to the forcemeat.

The step that matters

Pounding with the seasonings in the mortar. Pounding breaks the minced livers and ham into a fine, even paste so the seasonings distribute evenly. Incomplete pounding leaves a coarse, unevenly flavoured forcemeat.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, liver, ham, parsley, shallot, pepper, truffle):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, liver, ham, parsley, shallot, pepper, truffle. 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.

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipesChicken PanadaChicken Panada75 recipes