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Chicken Forcemeat

A mixture of ground chicken, flour, butter, egg, and stock, seasoned with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, then sieved.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, then stir in the flour and add the chicken stock; bring to a boil and let it cool slightly.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Pound the chicken in a mortar until smooth, gradually adding the egg and the cooled mixture.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste.

  3. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

  4. Test the consistency; if too dry, add a little cream.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Chicken
Forms the main body of the forcemeat and gives it its flavour.
Egg
Binds the mixture so it holds together when cooked.
Flour
Thickens the stock mixture, giving the forcemeat body and stability.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, improving flavour and a smooth texture.

The step that matters

Pounding and gradual addition of the egg and cooled mixture. Adding the egg and base gradually lets the chicken emulsify into a smooth paste. If the base is still hot, it can cook the egg and break the emulsion, leaving a grainy, curdled texture.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, butter, egg, pepper. 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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