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Puffs with Forcemeat of Vegetables

A puff pastry filled with a vegetable forcemeat of bacon, veal, parsley, eschalots, beans, asparagus, mushrooms, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 ↓

Puffs with Forcemeat of Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a stewpan, combine fat bacon, lean veal, parsley, eschalots, pepper, salt, and beaten spice.

  2. Add French beans, asparagus, mushrooms, and lemon juice; stew gently for 10 minutes.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a mortar, add cream, breadcrumbs, and egg yolk; pound well together.

Fill and fry

  1. Roll out puff pastry to ½ inch thick, cut into squares, and fill with the forcemeat.

  2. Fold the squares, seal with a jagger iron, and fry in boiling lard until brown.

Serve

  1. Drain and serve with sauce made from cullis, lemon pickle, and ketchup.

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. Beans + asparagustop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together292 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

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

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

  5. Asparagus + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together704 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Binds the forcemeat so it holds together when filled and fried.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling body and a firmer texture.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, layered casing that puffs and browns when fried.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the forcemeat, keeping it soft.
Lean veal
Provides the meaty base of the forcemeat filling.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the forcemeat as it cooks.

The step that matters

Sealing the squares before frying. If the edges are not sealed firmly, the filling can leak into the boiling lard and the pastry may open rather than puff and brown evenly.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, parsley, pepper, asparagus, mushroom, lemon, cream):

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Lentilsfits about as well
  4. Chickpeafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, parsley, pepper, asparagus, mushroom, lemon, cream. 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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