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Forcemeat Balls

A dish of minced veal and bacon or ham formed into balls and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Forcemeat Balls

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Forcemeat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine the minced veal, bacon or ham, shallot, parsley, and thyme.

  2. Add nutmeg, pepper, salt, lemon rind, bread crumbs, and the egg.

  3. Mix well to form a stiff paste, adding gravy or milk as needed to moisten.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into balls the size of marbles.

  2. Coat the balls in egg and bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the balls in boiling fat until golden 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main meaty body and soft texture of the meatballs.
Bacon or ham
Adds fat and savory flavor that keeps the meat moist during cooking.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the meatballs hold their shape.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help give the paste a firm, tender texture.

The step that matters

Frying in boiling fat. The fat must be hot enough to brown the coating quickly. If it is too cool, the balls soak up oil and turn greasy before the outside sets and browns.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, shallot, parsley, thyme, pepper, lemon):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, shallot, parsley, thyme, pepper, lemon. 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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