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Forcemeat for Hare

A forcemeat made from minced mushrooms, breadcrumbs, butter, spices, lemon rind, and eggs, shaped into 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

  1. Mince the mushrooms and mix with breadcrumbs and butter.

  2. Add salt, cayenne, mace, nutmeg, lemon rind, and beaten eggs.

  3. Form the mixture into small balls.

  4. Poach the balls in simmering water for 5 to 6 minutes.

  5. Alternatively, fry the balls for 6 to 8 minutes.

  6. Beat the mixture well in a mortar after mixing.

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 moisture and bulk, giving the forcemeat a soft, moist texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set when cooked.

The step that matters

Poach the balls in simmering water. Gentle simmering cooks the egg-bound mixture through without violent bubbling, which can break up the balls or make them tough and rubbery.

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.

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