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Forcemeat-Balls

A veal forcemeat ball made with suet, breadcrumbs, herbs, and lemon, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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-Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a wooden bowl, combine veal, suet, bread crumbs, herbs, parsley, mace, nutmeg, lemon peel, lemon juice, pepper, salt, and egg yolks. Mix well until combined.

  2. Roll the mixture into small round balls and some into long balls.

  3. Coat the balls in flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat butter in a frying pan.

  2. Fry the balls until golden 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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 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. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main meaty body and texture of the meatballs.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the meatballs moist and tender as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help bind the mixture so it holds its shape.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together and add richness to the texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich meat.

The step that matters

Frying the balls until golden brown. Frying over moderate heat in butter browns the flour coating and cooks the meat through. Too much heat can scorch the outside before the centre is cooked.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

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

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