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Forcemeat for Baked Fish

A baked fish stuffed with a forcemeat of oysters, suet, breadcrumbs, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,103 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Forcemeat for Baked Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Scald the oysters and remove their gills, then mince them with the suet.

  2. Combine the minced oysters and suet with breadcrumbs, herbs, salt, pepper, and mace.

  3. Moisten the mixture with a little oyster liquor, milk, and the egg yolk.

  4. Cook the mixture over low heat until it thickens.

Stuff and finish

  1. Stuff the fish with the forcemeat and sew it up.

  2. Optionally add 1 or 2 anchovies for extra flavor.

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. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Mace + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Oyster + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Breadcrumbs
Bind the forcemeat and give it body so it holds together when stuffed.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and rich as it cooks.
Oysters
Supply the main briny flavor of the stuffing.
Egg
Helps bind the mixture and set it as it thickens over heat.
Milk
Adds moisture that softens the breadcrumbs into a spreadable mixture.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture over low heat until it thickens. Egg proteins set when heated, so gentle low heat thickens the forcemeat smoothly. High heat can curdle the egg and make the stuffing grainy or dry.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, oyster, milk, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, oyster, milk, 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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