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Forcemeat for Hare

A forcemeat of minced mushrooms, bread crumbs, butter and seasoning, formed into small balls and poached or fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Forcemeat for Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Mince the cold mushrooms.

  2. Mix the mushrooms with bread crumbs and butter.

  3. If the mixture is too moist, add part of the liquid used for stewing.

  4. Add one egg yolk to bind the mixture.

  5. Add salt, cayenne, mace, nutmeg and lemon rind sparingly to preserve the mushroom flavor.

  6. Mix thoroughly with the egg yolk.

Shape and cook

  1. Form the mixture into small balls.

  2. Poach for 5 to 6 minutes or fry for 6 to 8 minutes.

Serve

  1. Use in soup, with roast fowl, or to fill boiled birds.

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

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

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main bulk and earthy flavor, and moisture that the mixture must be kept in balance with.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the forcemeat soft and moist as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it set when poached or fried.

The step that matters

Season sparingly. Salt and strong spices such as cayenne, mace and nutmeg can quickly overpower the delicate flavor of mushrooms. Adding them in small amounts keeps the mushroom taste clear.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, pepper, nutmeg, lemon, 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.