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Veal, Chicken or Rabbit Bondinettes

Small meatballs made from minced veal, chicken, or rabbit mixed with mashed potatoes, seasoned, baked, and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Veal, Chicken or Rabbit Bondinettes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the minced meat, mashed potatoes, salt, and pepper.

  3. Moisten the mixture with gravy made from the bones of the cold meat.

  4. Press the mixture into well-buttered cups.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 20 minutes.

  2. Turn out the bondinettes onto a dish.

  3. Pour a little browned gravy around each bondinette.

  4. Garnish with a sprig of parsley.

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

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Minced meat
Forms the main body of the meatballs and gives them their savory flavor and structure when cooked.
Mashed potatoes
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the meat mixture tender rather than dense.
Gravy made from the bones of the cold meat
Moistens the mixture so it stays juicy during baking.
Butter
Greases the cups so the bondinettes release cleanly and brown lightly on the surface.

The step that matters

Pressing the mixture into the buttered cups. The mixture must be packed firmly and the cups well greased. Loose packing can crumble when turned out, and missing grease lets the bondinettes stick and tear.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Carrotfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, butter, parsley. 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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