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Forcemeat of Crimbs

A baked pork forcemeat loaf seasoned with pepper, salt, lemon, anchovy paste, and browned flour, served with a savory gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Forcemeat of Crimbs

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Mix minced pork with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Place the mixture in a dripping pan and cook in the oven.

  4. Baste for the first half-hour with a mixture of butter and water, then with its own gravy.

  5. Bake for about 1 hour.

  6. Remove the loaf and keep it hot.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Strain the gravy from the pan and add lemon juice, anchovy paste, and butter mixed with browned flour.

  2. Add more boiling water if needed, boil once, and pour some over the loaf, serving the rest in a sauceboat.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + anchovytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pork
Forms the loaf's body and, as it cooks, the fat and juices that become the gravy.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the loaf and the sauceboat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, both for basting and for enriching the gravy.
Anchovy paste
Adds savory depth to the gravy without tasting strongly of fish.

The step that matters

Basting the loaf in the first half-hour. Basting with butter and water keeps the surface moist while the pork sets, so the outside does not dry or harden before the interior is cooked.

“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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