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Whiting Forcemeat

A mixture of whiting, panada, egg, butter, salt, cayenne, and optional lemon rind and herbs.

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 ↓

Whiting Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the skin from the whiting and scrape the flesh from the bones with a spoon.

  2. Pass the fish through a wire sieve.

Make the pâté

  1. In a mortar, combine the fish with panada.

  2. Add the egg and butter to the mixture.

  3. Season with salt and cayenne, then pound until smooth.

  4. Optionally, add grated lemon rind and powdered herbs 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Whiting + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together510 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Whiting
Provides the main body and flavor of the pâté.
Panada
Adds body and helps bind the fish into a smooth, spreadable mixture.
Egg
Helps bind the mixture and set it lightly when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture.

The step that matters

Pound until smooth. Thoroughly pounding the fish with panada, egg and butter breaks down the flesh into an even paste. Under-working leaves a grainy texture, while the fat and binders must be fully incorporated so the pâté does not separate.

“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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