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Forcemeat-balls

Forcemeat balls made from boiled eschalots, egg yolks, pheasant breast, bread crumbs, butter, and seasoned broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,081 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Forcemeat-balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Boil the eschalots until tender, then cool and mince them.

  2. In a mortar, combine the minced eschalots with egg yolks and mix well.

  3. Roll the mixture into small, equal-sized balls and dust with flour.

Poach in broth

  1. Skim the fat from the beef broth and heat it in a clean saucepan until boiling.

  2. Ensure the broth is seasoned with salt and cayenne before adding the balls.

  3. Carefully add the balls to the boiling broth and poach for 10 to 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. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Beef + pheasanttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together131 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Shallot + pheasanttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together89 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks bind the minced eschalots into a mixture that holds its shape.
Beef broth
Provides the liquid in which the balls poach, adding savoury flavour.
Eschalots
Minced shallots supply aromatic flavour and body to the forcemeat.

The step that matters

Adding the balls to the boiling broth. Dropping the balls into a vigorously boiling liquid can break them apart. Gentle handling keeps the rolled shapes intact while they cook through in the broth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, egg, flour, beef, pheasant, bread, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, egg, flour, beef, pheasant, bread, butter. 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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