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Superior Suet Forcemeat, Eor Veal, Turkeys, &C.

A forcemeat mixture of suet, bread crumbs, spices, and egg yolks, formed into balls and fried or poached.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Superior Suet Forcemeat, Eor Veal, Turkeys, &C.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mix the bread crumbs and chopped suet in a bowl.

  2. Add parsley, lemon-thyme, salt, cayenne, mace, and nutmeg; mix well.

  3. Incorporate the egg yolks and milk, then pound the mixture in a mortar until smooth.

Shape and rest

  1. Let the mixture cool for at least 30 minutes.

  2. Roll into balls, then flour them lightly.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the balls gently for 7 to 8 minutes until golden brown.

  2. Poach the balls for 6 to 7 minutes.

  3. Dry the balls well before serving.

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

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

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

Fine stale bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the balls body so they hold together.
Beef kidney suet
Adds fat that keeps the balls tender and moist as they cook.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it set into a smooth, cohesive paste.
Milk
Adds moisture so the crumbs soften and the mixture pounds smooth.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before shaping. Suet is fat that softens easily. Chilling the mixture firms the fat so the balls keep their shape and do not crack or fall apart during frying and poaching.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, beef, parsley, lemon, thyme, nutmeg, 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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