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Fish Forcemeat

A fish stuffed with breadcrumbs, herbs, oysters, suet, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,103 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fish Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Remove gills from oysters and mince them.

  2. Mix breadcrumbs, herbs, suet, salt, pepper, and mace in a bowl.

  3. Add the minced oysters, cream, and egg yolks, and blend thoroughly.

Cook and stuff

  1. Transfer the mixture to a stewpan and stir over low heat until it thickens.

  2. Stuff the mixture inside a medium-sized fish and sew it up.

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. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Oyster + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Mace + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  5. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

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

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it set when heated, giving it a firmer body.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, giving the forcemeat a soft, tender texture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and rich as it cooks.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture so the mixture blends smoothly and stays tender.

The step that matters

Stirring over low heat until it thickens. Egg yolks set when heated, so high heat or long cooking can curdle or toughen the mixture. Gentle, steady stirring thickens it evenly without scrambling the yolks.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, pepper, cream, 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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