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Force-meat

A seasoned meat mixture used to stuff fish, form into balls, or shape into patties.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Force-meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Combine butter, bread crumbs, hard-boiled egg yolks, shallot, lemon peel, and parsley in a bowl.

  2. Pound the mixture until smooth and well mixed.

  3. Season with salt and cayenne pepper.

  4. Beat the egg yolk and white together to bind the mixture.

Shape and use

  1. Use the mixture to stuff fish.

  2. Form the mixture into balls and fry them.

  3. Shape the mixture into patties.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 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

Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the mixture soft and tender.
Bread crumbs
Absorbs fat and gives the mixture body so it holds its shape.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a crumbly, smooth texture to the mixture.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so it holds its shape when cooked.

The step that matters

Beat the egg to bind the mixture. Egg proteins set when heated and hold the crumbs and fat together. Too little binding and the balls or patties may break apart in the pan.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, egg, lemon, parsley, pepper. 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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