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Forcemeat Balls

Forcemeat balls are small meatballs made from beef suet, veal or beef, bread crumbs, spices, parsley, marjoram, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Forcemeat Balls

Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Forcemeat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine beef suet, dressed veal or beef, bread crumbs, nutmeg, pepper, coarse sea salt, minced parsley, and marjoram. Mix thoroughly and moisten with the beaten eggs to bind the mixture.

Shape and cook

  1. Roll the mixture into small balls.

  2. Fry the balls in hot dripping until they are brown, or use them 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Nutmeg + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the meatballs moist and rich as they cook.
Dressed veal or beef
Provides the meat that gives the meatballs their main body and texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and soften the mixture so it holds together without becoming dense.
Beaten eggs
Bind the mixture together so the meatballs hold their shape.

The step that matters

Mix thoroughly and moisten with the beaten eggs. Thorough mixing spreads the fat, crumbs and seasonings evenly, while the egg binds the mixture so balls keep their shape during frying instead of falling apart.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, bread, pepper, parsley, marjoram, egg):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, bread, pepper, parsley, marjoram, 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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