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Egg and Mushroom Force-meat

A forcemeat of chopped button mushrooms, hard-boiled eggs, bread crumbs and cream, bound with a raw egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Egg and Mushroom Force-meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Wash the mushrooms, then rinse them in lemon juice.

  2. Chop the mushrooms.

  3. Cook the chopped mushrooms in butter and lemon juice until soft.

Make the forcemeat

  1. In a bowl, combine the cooked mushrooms with the sieved yolks of the hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Add the diced whites of the hard-boiled eggs.

  3. Add the bread crumbs, cream, salt, white pepper, and mace, then mix well.

  4. Add the raw egg to bind the mixture.

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

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  4. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Button mushrooms
Provide the main bulk and earthy flavor of the forcemeat, softening as they cook.
Hard-boiled eggs
Their sieved yolks and diced whites add richness and a firm, crumbly texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat body so it holds together rather than running.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mixture soft and smooth.
Raw egg
Sets when gently heated, binding the mixture together into a cohesive forcemeat.

The step that matters

Cooking the mushrooms until soft. Mushrooms are mostly water. Cooking them until that moisture has evaporated prevents a wet forcemeat that will not bind or hold its shape well.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, lemon, butter, egg, bread, cream, mace):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, lemon, butter, egg, bread, cream, mace. 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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