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Forcemeat Balls for Soup Maigre

Forcemeat balls made from crawfish or shrimp, anchovy, egg yolk, stale bread crumbs, mace, cayenne, salt, garlic, and raw egg, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,090 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Forcemeat Balls for Soup Maigre

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Pound the soft parts of a crawfish or shrimp in a mortar with an anchovy, hard-boiled egg yolk, stale bread crumbs, mace, cayenne, salt, and garlic.

  2. Work the mixture into a paste with a raw egg to bind it into dough.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll it out and cut it into small balls the size of marbles.

  2. Fry the balls in hot oil until they are a fine brown.

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 + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  2. Shrimp + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,743 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  3. Shrimp + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Crawfish or shrimp
Provides the main seafood flavor and the bulk of the mixture.
Raw egg
Binds the mixture into a cohesive dough that holds its shape.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the dough body and a soft, tender texture.
Hard-boiled egg yolk
Adds richness and a smooth, fine texture to the paste.
Anchovy
Adds salty, savory depth that enriches the seafood flavor.

The step that matters

Frying the balls in hot oil. Oil that is not hot enough lets the balls soak up grease and cook unevenly, while oil that is too hot browns the outside before the inside sets. Hot, steady oil gives an even fine brown crust and a cooked center.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, anchovy, egg, bread, pepper, garlic):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, anchovy, egg, bread, pepper, garlic. 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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