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Egg and Mushroom Force-meat

A forcemeat made with mushrooms, eggs, bread crumbs, butter, cream, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Egg and Mushroom Force-meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Wash the mushrooms and rinse them in lemon juice, then chop them.

  2. Cook the chopped mushrooms in lemon juice and butter until soft.

Make the forcemeat

  1. In a bowl, combine the cooked mushrooms with the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs (sieved) and the diced egg whites.

  2. Add the bread crumbs and cream, mixing well.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Button mushrooms
Provide the bulk and savoury flavour of the forcemeat once cooked soft.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and richness, with the sieved yolks giving a smooth texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the mixture so it holds together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the mushrooms as they cook.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, helping the mixture bind smoothly.

The step that matters

Cook the mushrooms until soft. Mushrooms are mostly water, so they must cook long enough for that moisture to evaporate. Otherwise the forcemeat stays wet and loose after the crumbs and cream are added.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, cream, egg, bread, 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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