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A Substitute for Forced Meat

A haddock-based meat substitute made with suet, butter, eggs, flour, cream, and salt, boiled for 3 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Haddock and cream work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 181 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

A Substitute for Forced Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin and dry the haddock.

  2. Remove the meat from the bones and pound it in a mortar.

  3. Add the chopped suet and butter, and pound until smooth.

  4. Mix in the egg whites, egg yolks, flour, cream, and salt.

Cook

  1. Form the mixture into small balls or a large pudding.

  2. Boil in water for 3 hours.

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. Haddock + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together181 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Haddock + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together764 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Haddock
Provides the main body of the meatballs, forming the bulk of the mixture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the mixture moist and tender as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the mixture so it holds together.
Egg whites
Set during cooking to give the mixture structure and firmness.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and helps the mixture hold its shape.

The step that matters

Pounding the fish, suet and butter until smooth. Thoroughly breaking down the fish and fat creates an even, fine texture. Under-pounded pieces leave a coarse, uneven meatball, while a smooth emulsion of fat and protein gives a more tender result.

“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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