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Mushroom Forcemeat

A savory mushroom mixture used as stuffing or for making small balls for soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mushroom Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Cut the stems off the mushrooms and peel them.

  2. Remove the flesh from the mushrooms.

  3. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the mushrooms, cayenne pepper and mace.

  4. Stew the mixture for 5 to 7 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally.

  5. Transfer the mushrooms to a dish and spread them out.

  6. Let the liquid drain as the mushrooms cool.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Once cold, mince the mushrooms and mix them with the bread crumbs.

  2. Add the remaining butter, the egg yolk(s) to bind, salt, cayenne pepper, mace, nutmeg and grated lemon peel.

  3. Mix thoroughly.

Shape and use

  1. Use the forcemeat to make small balls for soup and fry the balls.

  2. Fill boiled fowls and boiled turkeys with the forcemeat.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main bulk and earthy flavour of the forcemeat.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the mixture body so it holds its shape.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together and help it set when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and keeping the mixture moist.

The step that matters

Let the liquid drain as the mushrooms cool. Mushrooms release a lot of water when cooked. If it is not drained off before mincing and mixing, the forcemeat becomes soggy and will not hold its shape or bind well.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, pepper, nutmeg, lemon, bread, 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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