½ cup of precooked diced bacon
2 cups breadcrumbs
2 teaspoons chopped parsley
1 teaspoon lemon peel
¼ teaspoon thyme
¼ teaspoon sage
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
1/3 cup water
1 egg
2 Tablespoons butter, melted
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
Method
Mix all ingredients together. You may need to add more water if you wish to gather the dough into balls.
Notes
Another recipe straight out of Mrs. Beeton. Forcemeat is the British equivalent of stuffing (cf. Middle English farce ‘to stuff’), molded into small balls, fried, and served with poultry.
Suggestions
The Victorian way to make Scotch Eggs (again, Mrs. Beeton) is to coat hard-boiled eggs with forcemeat, fry till brown and serve with gravy. But make sure there's lots of meat in your forcemeat (whether bacon, ham, sausage, or anchovies): “The flavour of the ham or anchovy in the forcemeat must preponderate, as it should be very relishing.”
