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Forcemeat Balls for Cold Pies

Small balls of seasoned beef or veal and bacon, fried and then coated in a thickened butter and water sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Forcemeat Balls for Cold Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Chop and pound the beef or veal, bacon, nutmeg, mace, lemon peel, parsley, and herbs together until well combined.

  2. Bind the mixture with the beaten egg and form into small balls.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the balls in fresh dripping until they are light brown.

Make the panada

  1. For the panada, bring the water, butter, and salt to a boil.

  2. Stir in flour until the mixture is thick.

  3. Turn out onto a dish to cool.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef or veal
Provides the main meaty body and structure of the forcemeat balls.
Fat bacon
Adds fat that keeps the balls moist and adds savoury flavour.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the balls hold their shape.
Flour
Thickens the panada into a paste that helps bind and soften the forcemeat.
Lemon peel
Adds bright aromatic citrus flavour that cuts through the rich meat.

The step that matters

Frying the balls until light brown. Frying in hot dripping browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, adding flavour and colour; too little heat leaves them pale and greasy, while too much can scorch the outside before the centre is cooked.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, nutmeg, lemon, parsley, egg, butter. 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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