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Oyster Forcemeat

A dish of oyster-based meatballs made with bread crumbs, butter, lemon rind, mace, cayenne, parsley, egg yolk, and oyster liquor.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Oyster Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Open the oysters carefully and remove the gills.

  2. Strain the oyster liquor and rinse the oysters in it.

  3. Grate the stale bread into fine crumbs.

  4. Mince the oysters, but not too small, and mix with the bread crumbs.

Shape and cook

  1. Add the butter, lemon rind, mace, cayenne, salt, and parsley; mix well.

  2. Work in the egg yolk and a little oyster liquor until combined.

  3. Form the mixture into balls.

  4. Fry the balls in hot oil for 7 to 10 minutes or poach for 5 to 6 minutes.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and the tender, moist body of the meatballs.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mixture body so the balls hold their shape.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the texture tender and moist.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture together so the balls hold their shape during cooking.

The step that matters

Work in the egg yolk and a little oyster liquor until combined. Adding too much liquid makes the mixture loose and hard to shape, while too little leaves it dry and crumbly. Mixing gently until just combined keeps the balls tender and helps them hold together when cooked.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

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