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Forcemeat Balls for Fish, Soups, &C.

A ball made from lobster or crayfish flesh mixed with anchovy, celery, egg yolk, spices, bread crumbs, butter, and eggs, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Forcemeat Balls for Fish, Soups, &C.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the flesh and soft parts of the lobster or crayfish.

  2. Add the anchovy, boiled celery, egg yolk, cayenne, mace, salt, and pepper.

Form and fry

  1. Mix in the bread crumbs, butter, and beaten eggs.

  2. Form the mixture into balls.

  3. Fry the balls until they are a light brown.

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. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster or crayfish
Provides the main fish flesh that gives the balls their body and flavour.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it set as the balls cook.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mixture hold its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the surface brown during frying.
Hard-boiled egg yolk
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Mix in the bread crumbs, butter, and beaten eggs. Egg proteins set when heated and bind the mixture, while bread crumbs absorb liquid. Adding them in the right proportion keeps the balls moist yet firm enough to hold their shape in the frying fat.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, anchovy, celery, egg, pepper, bread, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, anchovy, celery, egg, pepper, bread, butter. 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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