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Godiveau Forcemeat

A forcemeat of lean veal, beef suet, herbs, eggs, and sauce tournee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,784 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Godiveau Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine veal, beef suet, herbaceous mixture, and 2 eggs in a bowl.

  2. Pound the mixture until smooth and no fragments remain.

  3. If summer, chill the mixture on ice for 1–2 hours.

  4. If winter, add sauce tournee.

Shape and cook

  1. Form into small balls and blanch or bake for a few minutes.

  2. Adjust consistency with an additional egg if too soft, or more sauce tournee if too stiff.

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. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  2. Beef + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,650 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Veal + saucetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,072 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

  4. Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,845 recipes

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

  5. Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean veal
Provides the main lean protein that forms the body of the forcemeat.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and tender when cooked.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so it holds its shape when formed and cooked.
Sauce tournee
Adds liquid and body to adjust the stiffness of the mixture.

The step that matters

Pound until smooth with no fragments remaining. Thorough pounding breaks down the meat and fat into a fine, uniform paste. Lumps or visible fibres give a coarse, crumbly texture instead of a smooth, cohesive forcemeat.

“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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