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Puffs with Forcemeat of Vegetables

A puff pastry square filled with a vegetable forcemeat of bacon, veal, beans, asparagus, mushrooms, and spices.

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

Prepare the filling

  1. In a stewpan, combine bacon, veal, parsley, shallots, pepper, salt, beaten spice, French beans, asparagus, mushrooms, and lemon juice.

  2. Stew gently for 10 minutes.

  3. Pound the mixture in a mortar with cream, bread crumbs, and egg yolk.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out puff pastry to ½ inch thick and cut into squares.

  2. Fill each square with the forcemeat, fold, and shape with a jagger iron.

  3. 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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

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

  5. Shallot + asparagustop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 folded.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat body and a firmer texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling soft.
Puff pastry
Its layers puff and separate when fried, forming a crisp, flaky casing.
Bacon
Its fat adds richness and flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Frying in boiling lard until brown. The lard must be hot enough to crisp and brown the pastry quickly; if it is too cool, the pastry absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of flaky.

Swap the beans

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

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

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