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Forcemeat

A finely minced mixture of beef suet, bacon, veal, bread, spices, and egg yolks used for stuffing or fried croquettes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince the beef suet, fat bacon, veal, and grated bread very finely.

  2. Add grated lemon peel, nutmeg, pepper, coarse sea salt, and parsley; mix well.

  3. Bind the mixture with the beaten egg yolks.

Shape and cook

  1. Shape into croquettes or balls the size of large nutmegs.

  2. Fry in ghee or clarified beef dripping, or use for stuffing.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and tender as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Bind the minced mixture together so it holds its shape.
Grated bread
Absorbs fat and moisture, giving the mixture a lighter, softer texture.
Veal
Provides the lean meat base that gives the forcemeat its body.

The step that matters

Bind the mixture with the beaten egg yolks. Egg yolk binds the finely minced ingredients so they hold together when shaped. Adding it too early or mixing too hard can make the texture uneven or dense, so it should be stirred in gently and evenly.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, bread, lemon, pepper, parsley, egg):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, bread, lemon, pepper, parsley, egg. 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.

More forcemeat recipes

Balls 27Fish 25Veal 24Chestnut 18Hare 17Suet 13 See all 56 →

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