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Fish Forcemeat

A fish forcemeat made by finely chopping fish, mixing with anchovy, egg yolk, butter, herbs, lemon, and soaked bread, then shaped.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Fish Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Finely chop the fish and pound it in a mortar.

  2. Add anchovies or anchovy essence, egg yolk, butter, herbs, lemon peel, and lemon juice.

  3. Mix in the soaked bread to form a paste.

  4. Shape into balls or use for stuffing.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the forcemeat once pounded into a paste.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture and adds richness to hold the paste together.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer, moister texture in the paste.
Bread
Absorbs liquid and adds body so the paste holds its shape.
Anchovies
Adds savoury depth and salty flavour to the fish.

The step that matters

Pounding the fish into a paste. Fish must be finely chopped and pounded so the mixture becomes smooth and binds well. Coarse pieces stay loose and crumble when shaped or stuffed.

“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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