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Forcemeat for Raised Pies

A forcemeat mixture of chicken livers, veal fat, bread, and seasonings for pies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Liver and veal match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 392 recipes. Both carry enoic acid, which smells butter, cheesy. The science ↓

Forcemeat for Raised Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the livers

  1. Chop parsley, lemon thyme, and mushrooms.

  2. In a pot, boil chicken livers in cold water with salt.

  3. Drain and trim any bad parts.

  4. Fry the livers in clarified butter until cooked.

Make the bread paste

  1. Heat with butter and garlic until butter is clear.

  2. Add the crumbed French roll and cover with consomme.

  3. Stir until it thickens to a paste.

Combine

  1. Pound in a mortar until smooth with hard-boiled egg yolks.

  2. Mix in the veal fat and the bread paste until well blended.

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. Liver + vealtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: enoic acid (butter, cheesy).

  2. Garlic + chickentop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,850 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  3. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Chicken + vealtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

  5. Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken livers
Provide the main body and rich flavour of the forcemeat once cooked and pounded smooth.
French roll
Soaked in consomme and thickened into a paste that gives the forcemeat its binding structure.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the pounded mixture into a smooth, cohesive texture.
Veal fat
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the forcemeat soft and well blended.

The step that matters

Fry the livers until cooked. Livers are delicate and overcooking makes them dry and grainy, while undercooking leaves them unsafe. Frying gently until just set keeps the later pounded texture smooth and moist.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, garlic, chicken, liver, egg, veal):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, garlic, chicken, liver, egg, veal. 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.

More pie forcemeat recipes

Game 4

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