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Fish Forcemeat

A fish forcemeat made from turbot, soles, lobster, shrimps, or oysters, butter, breadcrumbs, egg yolks, shallot, lemon peel, parsley, salt, cayenne, and an egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Fish Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the fish, butter, bread crumbs, egg yolks, shallot, lemon peel, and parsley in a bowl.

  2. Pound the mixture until smooth and well mixed, then season with salt and cayenne pepper.

  3. Add the yolk and white of one egg and mix well.

  4. The forcemeat is now ready for use.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish (in the method)
Provides the main body and flavour of the forcemeat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture so the mixture stays tender.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat body and structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the mixture together.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it hold together when used.

The step that matters

Pounding until smooth. Thorough pounding breaks the fish and bread into a fine, even paste. Under-worked mixtures stay coarse and can separate or feel grainy, while the egg added afterward needs thorough mixing to bind evenly.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, butter, bread, egg, lemon, parsley, pepper. 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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