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Forcemeat Balls for Mock Turtle Soups

Forcemeat balls made from veal, suet, bread crumbs, butter, ham, nutmeg, mace, eggs, and salt, boiled for mock turtle soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Forcemeat Balls for Mock Turtle Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Combine minced veal and suet in a large bowl.

  2. Add bread crumbs, butter, minced ham, nutmeg, mace, and beaten eggs. Mix thoroughly with your hands until well combined.

Shape and cook

  1. Form the mixture into small balls.

  2. Roll the balls in additional bread crumbs.

  3. Boil the balls in salted water until cooked through.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help the balls hold their shape when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and lighten the texture of the meat mixture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the meatballs moist and tender as they cook.
Veal
Provides the main meat base for the balls.
Boiled ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the mixture.

The step that matters

Boil the balls in salted water until cooked through. Boiling gently cooks the egg-bound mixture evenly; a rolling boil can break the balls apart, and undercooking leaves the raw egg and meat unsafe to eat.

Swap the mace

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

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

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