Name: Forcemeat, or Stuffing
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley; 3 ounces beef suet (or butter for cold serving); pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; grated lemon peel to taste; 1 cup bread crumbs; 1 egg; milk as needed

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Forcemeat, or Stuffing

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine parsley, beef suet, pepper, salt, lemon peel, and bread crumbs.
Add the egg and mix well.
Moisten the mixture with milk if necessary.
If serving cold, substitute butter for beef suet.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, lemon, bread, egg, milk):

Parsleythe original
Marjoramfits about as well
Nutmegfits about as well
Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, lemon, bread, egg, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.