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Nice Forcemeat, for Stuffings, Etc

A forcemeat mixture of equal parts chicken, veal, and beef, seasoned and used for stuffing or fried into balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,148 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Nice Forcemeat, for Stuffings, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Shred equal quantities of cold chicken, veal, and beef into small pieces and mix together.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper, coarse sea salt, sweet herbs, and nutmeg.

  3. For a savory dish, add minced ham and garlic.

  4. Pound or chop the mixture very fine, or run it through a sausage chopper.

Bind and use

  1. Make a paste with the mixture, 2 raw eggs, butter, and marrow or drippings.

  2. Stuff your joint or poultry with the forcemeat.

  3. If there is any forcemeat left, roll it into balls, coat with flour, and fry in boiling lard until golden.

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. Chicken + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Chicken + garlictop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,850 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  4. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the paste so it holds together and sets firmly when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the cooked forcemeat tender.
Marrow or drippings
Adds fat and savory flavor, helping the paste stay moist.
Cold chicken, veal, and beef
Form the body of the forcemeat, giving it substance and meaty texture.

The step that matters

Pound or chop the mixture very fine. Fine chopping spreads the fat and proteins evenly, so the paste binds smoothly and cooks to a uniform, tender texture rather than a coarse, crumbly one.

Swap the garlic

The recipe marks garlic as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, veal, beef, pepper, nutmeg, ham, egg):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, veal, beef, pepper, nutmeg, ham, 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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