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Forcemeat for Hare

A forcemeat made from minced hare mushrooms, bread crumbs, butter, spices, and egg yolks, poached or fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Forcemeat for Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Make the forcemeat

  1. Mince the small mushrooms and mix with bread crumbs and butter.

  2. If the mixture is too moist, add some of the liquid used for stewing.

  3. Add the egg yolk to bind the ingredients together.

  4. Stir in salt, cayenne, mace, nutmeg, and lemon rind sparingly.

  5. Mix thoroughly and form into small balls.

Cook the balls

  1. Poach the balls in simmering water for 1 to 6 minutes or fry for 6 to 8 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the crumbs and butter together so the mixture holds its shape.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and structure that gives the forcemeat body.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, carrying flavour through the mixture.
Mushrooms
Contribute moisture and earthy savoury flavour to the mixture.

The step that matters

Adding moisture carefully. If the mixture is too wet it will not hold its shape and may fall apart when cooked. Adding stewing liquid only when needed, and binding with egg yolk, helps the balls keep their form in simmering water or hot fat.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, butter, bread, pepper, nutmeg, lemon, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, bread, pepper, nutmeg, lemon, 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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