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Farina Meat Balls

Meatballs made with farina, simmered in water and served in a tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Farina Meat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the meatballs

  1. Season the meat with salt, cayenne pepper, onion, and parsley.

  2. Add the egg and farina, then form into round balls.

  3. Stew the balls in salted water until the meat is done.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Remove the balls and add canned tomatoes, cayenne pepper, and flour mixed with cold milk to the cooking water.

  2. Pour the sauce over the meat balls and serve hot.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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

Finely ground meat
Forms the body of the meatballs and provides the savory base of the dish.
Egg
Binds the meat and farina so the balls hold their shape while cooking.
Farina
Absorbs moisture and helps give the meatballs a tender, light texture.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce with a smooth body.
Canned tomatoes
Adds acidity and body to the sauce, balancing the rich meat.

The step that matters

Stew the balls in salted water until the meat is done. Gentle simmering cooks the meat through without toughening it. Boiling too hard can cause the balls to break apart and the meat to become dry and firm.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, parsley, egg, tomato, flour, milk):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, parsley, egg, tomato, flour, milk. 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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