Name: Common Stuffing, or Forcemeat
Ingredients: 3-4 ounces of suet; 3-4 ounces of real (or chopped oysters for turkey); 2 ounces of finely grated bread; 1 tablespoon finely minced parsley; 1 teaspoon lemon peel; ¼ teaspoon nutmeg or mace; ¼ teaspoon white pepper; ¼ teaspoon salt; 2-3 eggs, yolks only

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 ↓

Common Stuffing, or Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the suet and real (or oysters) together.
Mix in the grated bread and minced parsley.
Season with lemon peel, nutmeg or mace, white pepper, and salt.
Blend the mixture with the yolks of 2-3 beaten eggs.

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 + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,062 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,375 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,545 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Suet: Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich as it cooks.
Bread: Absorbs moisture and gives the stuffing its body.
Eggs: Yolks bind the mixture together and add richness.

Swap the white pepper

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

Marjoramfits better
Thymefits better
Tarragonfits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, bread, parsley, lemon, nutmeg, 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.