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Forcemeat of Veal

A mixture of chopped veal, butter or suet, soaked bread, milk, spices, and egg yolks formed into small balls or used as stuffing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Forcemeat of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Chop the veal, removing skin and fat.

  2. Pound the veal in a mortar.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Soak the fine bread in cold milk, then squeeze it dry.

  2. Add the soaked bread, butter or suet, salt, pepper, and nutmeg to the veal and pound together.

  3. Bind the mixture with the yolks of two eggs.

  4. Form the mixture into small balls or use as 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the lean meat base that gives the forcemeat its body and savoury flavour.
Butter or suet
Adds fat, which keeps the forcemeat moist and tender after cooking.
Fine bread
Absorbs liquid and lightens the texture, helping the forcemeat stay soft rather than dense.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together, setting when cooked to hold its shape.

The step that matters

Pound the veal thoroughly. Pounding breaks down the meat fibres so the forcemeat becomes smooth and binds well. Under-pounded meat stays coarse and crumbly, and the bread, fat and yolks will not blend evenly into it.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Sagefits less well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, bread, milk, pepper, 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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