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Eggs with Forcemeat Balls

Eggs served with fried forcemeat balls, boiled eggs, brown sauce, and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Eggs with Forcemeat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the forcemeat

  1. Preheat a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Rub the butter into the bread crumbs and mix in the herbs.

  3. Season with Cayenne pepper, salt, and mace.

  4. Add the beaten eggs and cream, mixing well.

  5. Roll the mixture into balls.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the balls in butter until golden brown.

  2. Serve on a flat dish with 4 or 5 boiled eggs cut in half.

  3. Drizzle with brown sauce and serve with currant jelly.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Leek + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Parsley + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together759 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the forcemeat and absorb the butter and egg for a soft interior.
Eggs
Bind the crumbs into a mixture that holds its shape when rolled and fried.
Butter
Adds richness and, when frying, promotes browning on the outside of the balls.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the mixture so it stays tender.
Parsley
Contributes fresh herbal aroma and color to the forcemeat.

The step that matters

Fry the balls in butter until golden brown. Frying over steady heat browns the outside through the Maillard reaction while the interior sets. Too high heat scorches the butter and burns the outside before the center is heated through.

“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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