force-meat

The chef prepares a force-meat for the sausage.

Definition

1. Noun:
   • A mixture of finely chopped and seasoned ingredients: "force-meat" refers to a preparation of minced meat, fish, or vegetables, often mixed with breadcrumbs, eggs, and seasonings, used as a stuffing or filling for dishes such as poultry, pastries, or dumplings.

Usage Examples

• Noun:
  • The chef prepared a savory force-meat to stuff the turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. (A seasoned minced mixture used as a filling.)
  • She added herbs and spices to the force-meat before shaping it into small balls for soup. (A seasoned mixture of minced ingredients.)

Advanced Usage

• "to make force-meat": to prepare this mixture.

  • The recipe instructs you to make force-meat by combining ground pork, breadcrumbs, and egg. (To create the stuffing mixture.)

• "force-meat ball": a small, shaped portion of force-meat, often cooked separately.

  • The soup was garnished with delicate force-meat balls. (Small dumplings made from the mixture.)

Variants and Related Words

• Forcemeat (n): an alternative spelling of "force-meat," with the same meaning.

  • The traditional recipe calls for a fine forcemeat of veal and pork. (A minced seasoned mixture.)

• Forced-meat (n): a less common variant, sometimes used in older texts.

  • The cookbook from the 1800s describes forced-meat as a stuffing for game birds. (An older term for force-meat.)

Synonyms

• Stuffing: a mixture used to fill a cavity in food.
• Filling: a substance placed inside food items.
• Mince: finely chopped meat or vegetables.

Related Idioms

• Force-meat of a story: (rare, figurative) the essential or core content of a narrative, likened to the stuffing of a dish.
  • The detective extracted the force-meat of the suspect's alibi. (The crucial details or substance.)