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Force Meat Balls

Small balls of seasoned veal forcemeat mixed with bread crumbs and egg, with a boiled egg-and-parsley variation.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Force Meat Balls

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Mix the chopped veal, egg, butter or pork, bread crumbs, and enough warm water to moisten.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then form into small balls.

Make the egg filling

  1. Boil the eggs, then mash them with one raw egg and flour, adding salt, pepper, and parsley.

  2. Shape this mixture into balls and boil for two minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, 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

Chopped veal
Provides the main meat body and savoury flavour of the forcemeat balls.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the meat mixture hold together when shaped.
Egg
Binds the meat mixture so the balls keep their shape while cooking.
Butter or finely chopped raw pork
Adds fat, which keeps the forcemeat moist and tender as it cooks.
Eggs
Mashed boiled eggs form the filling, adding body and a soft, rich texture.
Flour
Thickens the mashed egg mixture so it holds together when shaped into balls.

The step that matters

Shape the egg mixture and boil for two minutes. The mashed egg mixture is soft and loose before cooking. Boiling briefly sets the raw egg and flour so the balls hold their shape rather than falling apart in the water.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, butter, bread, meat, pepper, flour. 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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