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Force-meat

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Force-meat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Finely chop and scald the parsley, thyme, savoury, and marjoram.

  2. Pound the herbs with the lobster meat, oysters, and anchovies.

  3. Season the mixture with salt, nutmeg, cayenne, and essence of shallot.

  4. Add the egg yolk and enough bread crumbs to bind the mixture.

  5. Stuff the mixture into the belly of the fish and cook until done.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Marjoram + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, thyme, marjoram, meat, lobster, oyster, pepper):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, thyme, marjoram, meat, lobster, oyster, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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