Why it works: Meat and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,533 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓
Forcemeat
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the meat
Chop the lean muscle of the meat or fish finely and pound it to a paste.
Force the mixture through a wire puree sieve using a wooden vegetable masher.
If using beef suet, chop it fine, pound it with the bread, and rub through the puree sieve.
For calf's udder, tie it in netting, boil for one hour, cool, chop, pound, and rub through a puree sieve.
Make the bread paste
Cook the bread and cream (or milk or stock) until a smooth paste forms, using half as much bread as liquid.
Combine and test
Pound the mixture again with the other ingredients to ensure it is blended well.
To test, drop a small ball into boiling water and cook for about ten minutes; it should cut smooth and tender.
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.
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Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,533 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,032 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,924 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Meat + creamtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,248 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Bread + creamtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,789 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Raw meat or fish
- Provides the main protein that sets into a firm, smooth paste when cooked.
- Bread
- Adds body and helps bind the mixture so it stays smooth and moist.
- Cream or milk or stock
- Supplies moisture that keeps the forcemeat tender and helps form the paste.
- Beef suet
- Adds fat that enriches texture and keeps the forcemeat moist.
The step that matters
Test a small ball before using the whole mixture. Poaching a small ball shows whether the seasoning and binding are right and whether the texture is smooth and tender. Adjust before shaping the full batch, because the cooked texture is hard to fix afterward.
“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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