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Chestnut Forcemeat

A forcemeat made from chestnuts, liver, ham or sausage, bread crumbs, onion, butter, lemon peel, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chestnut Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the chestnuts and boil them with the onion and liver in water or a little stock for 15 minutes.

  2. Finely chop the ham and onion, or remove the sausage from its skin.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Pound the chestnuts and liver to a paste, adding a little stock to moisten.

  2. Mix in the other ingredients, including the grated lemon peel, and combine thoroughly.

  3. Add the egg and form into a paste, adding more stock if necessary.

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

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

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  3. Chestnut + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together696 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Chestnut + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together381 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Chestnut + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together191 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Chestnuts
Provide the starchy, mealy bulk that forms the bbulk of the paste.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so it holds together when formed into a paste.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body, giving the paste a softer, firmer texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Adding the egg and stock. Egg sets when heated and binds the paste, so adding too much egg or stock can make the mixture loose or wet. Add stock gradually until the paste just holds its shape.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chestnut, ham, egg, bread, onion, butter, liver):

  1. Applefits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Pumpkinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chestnut, ham, egg, bread, onion, butter, liver. 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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