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Forcemeat for Above

A finely chopped mixture of veal, bacon, mushrooms, parsley, and egg yolks used as stuffing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Forcemeat for Above

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the veal, bacon, mushrooms, and parsley very finely.

  2. Pound the chopped ingredients in a mortar with the egg yolks.

  3. Work all the ingredients thoroughly together until well combined.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

  4. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Veal + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,766 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the lean meat base that gives the forcemeat its main body and texture.
Fat bacon
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and rich as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Bind the chopped ingredients together so the mixture holds its shape.

The step that matters

Chop everything very finely. Fine chopping lets the meat, fat and vegetables blend evenly. Large pieces stay separate and can make the forcemeat coarse and crumbly rather than smooth and cohesive.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, mushroom, pepper, egg):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, mushroom, pepper, 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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