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Force-Meat Balls

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Force-Meat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Clean the meat from sinews and cut into slices.

  2. Pound the meat in a mortar until smooth.

  3. Form into balls no larger than a marble.

  4. Roll the balls in fine flour before frying or boiling.

  5. Boil the calf's udder, clean it, and pound it until it can be sieved.

  6. Soak bread crumbs in milk, then drain.

  7. Combine soaked crumbs with white broth in a stewpan.

  8. In another pan, fry butter, ham, parsley, clove, shallots, mace, and mushrooms gently.

  9. Moisten the mixture with broth, boil gently, and strain over the bread mixture.

  10. Place the panada on the fire and reduce, stirring until dry.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

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

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, bread, milk, butter, ham, parsley, shallot):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, bread, milk, butter, ham, parsley, shallot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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