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Very Fine Forcemeat Balls, for Fish Soups, or Fish, Stewed on Maigre Days

A mixture of lobster, anchovy, celery, egg yolk, spices, bread crumbs, oyster liquor, butter, and eggs formed into balls and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Very Fine Forcemeat Balls, for Fish Soups, or Fish, Stewed on Maigre Days

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Beat the lobster flesh, anchovy, celery, egg yolk, cayenne, mace, salt, and white pepper together.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, oyster liquor, warmed butter, and beaten eggs; mix well.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into balls.

  2. Fry the balls in butter until they are a fine brown.

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. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main seafood body and flavour of the forcemeat.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so the balls hold their shape.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, giving the mixture a softer, lighter texture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the surface brown when frying.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the mixture into a smooth paste.

The step that matters

Fry the balls until a fine brown. Frying in butter browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, adding flavour and colour. Too little heat leaves them pale and greasy, while too much browns the outside before the centre cooks through.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, anchovy, celery, egg, pepper, white pepper, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, anchovy, celery, egg, pepper, white pepper, bread. 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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