Name: Another Good Common Forcemeat
Ingredients: 4 ounces bread crumbs; 2 ounces lean boiled ham, finely minced; 2 ounces good butter; 2 teaspoons mixed herbs, chopped; 1 teaspoon lemon zest; ¼ teaspoon nutmeg; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 teaspoon black pepper or cayenne

Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Another Good Common Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine the bread crumbs and minced ham.
Add the butter, mixed herbs, lemon zest, nutmeg, salt, and pepper, then mix thoroughly until well combined.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs: Provides the body of the forcemeat, absorbing butter and binding the mixture together.
Boiled ham: Adds savoury, meaty flavour and a little texture to the forcemeat.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture, coating the crumbs so the mixture stays tender.
Mixed herbs: Contributes aroma and freshness that brighten the savoury filling.
Lemon zest: Adds bright aromatic oils that lift the richness of the butter and ham.

Swap the lemon

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

Lemonthe original
Figfits about as well
Applefits less well
Red currantfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, ham, butter, nutmeg, pepper. 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.