Name: Forcemeat for Roast Veal, Turkey, Etc
Ingredients: 4 ounces stale bread, very finely grated; rind of ½ fresh lemon, pared thin; ¼ ounce minced parsley; ⅛ ounce minced thyme; pepper or cayenne, to taste; 1 egg yolk, unbeaten; 2 ounces butter, cut into small bits

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Forcemeat for Roast Veal, Turkey, Etc

Ingredients

4 ounces stale bread, very finely grated
rind of ½ fresh lemon, pared thin
¼ ounce minced parsley
⅛ ounce minced thyme
pepper or cayenne, to taste
1 egg yolk, unbeaten
2 ounces butter, cut into small bits

Directions

Mix the grated stale bread, lemon rind, parsley, thyme, and pepper or cayenne in a bowl.
Add the unbeaten egg yolk and small bits of butter.
Work the mixture smoothly together with your fingers.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,973 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread: Forms the body of the stuffing and soaks up butter and egg for a moist, cohesive texture.
Egg yolk: Acts as a binder that helps the crumbs and butter hold together as a smooth mixture.
Butter: Adds fat that enriches flavor and keeps the forcemeat moist and tender when cooked.

The step that matters

Work the mixture smoothly together with your fingers. Cold butter must be worked evenly into the crumbs and yolk so the fat is distributed. Unevenly mixed butter can leave greasy pockets and a crumbly, uneven texture.

Swap the thyme

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

Marjoramfits about as well
Thymethe original
Tarragonfits about as well
Sagefits about as well

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

Brown Bread461 recipes

Lemon Sauce236 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

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Forcemeat for Roast Veal, Turkey, Etc