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Forcemeat Balls for Mock Turtle Soups

A mixture of veal, suet, ham, bread crumbs, herbs, spices, and eggs formed into balls and boiled in soup.

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 ↓

Forcemeat Balls for Mock Turtle Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. In a bowl, mix veal, suet, ham, bread crumbs, parsley, thyme or marjoram, white pepper, coarse sea salt, cayenne, and nutmeg.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and then combine with the meat mixture, using your fingers to blend well.

Shape and cook

  1. Roll the mixture into small balls.

  2. Boil the balls in a little soup for 12 minutes.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 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

Veal
Forms the main body of the balls and gives them a tender, meaty texture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the balls moist and rich during cooking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mixture hold together with a softer texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the balls keep their shape when simmered.

The step that matters

Blending the eggs into the meat mixture. Eggs must be worked in evenly so the binding is consistent; uneven mixing leaves weak spots where balls may crumble or set unevenly in the soup.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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