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Force Meat Balls

A soup with browned beef or veal meatballs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Force Meat Balls

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Force Meat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meatballs

  1. Combine the chopped meat, egg, butter, bread crumbs, and enough milk or consommé to moisten in a bowl. Mix well and form into balls.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat butter in a pan and fry the meatballs until browned.

  2. Add the browned meatballs to the soup.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped beef or veal
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the meatballs.
Egg
Binds the meat mixture so the meatballs hold their shape.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and keep the meatballs tender and moist.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the meatballs brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Frying the meatballs until browned. Browning through the Maillard reaction builds deep savory flavor on the surface. Frying in a hot pan with enough fat, without crowding, gives color rather than steaming the meatballs grey.

“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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