Name: Force-meat Pie
Ingredients: 1 handful beets; 1 handful parsley; small quantity leeks, finely chopped; ¼ pound bread crumbs; 2 ounces butter, rolled in flour; water; pepper; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Force-meat Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

Combine beets, parsley, leeks, and bread crumbs in a bowl.
Add butter and mix to form balls, adding water to keep them moist.
Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Bake

Cover the mixture with pastry and bake until golden.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + leektop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together759 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Leek + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together328 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Beets: Provide the main body and earthy flavor of the filling.
Bread crumbs: Absorb moisture and bind the filling together.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the mixture hold together in balls.
Leeks: Add mild onion-like aroma and savory flavor.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, bread, butter, flour, pepper):

Shallotfits better
Carrotfits about as well
Chivefits about as well
Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, bread, butter, flour, 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.