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Mince Meat

A sweet meat dish made with beef, suet, sugar, raisins, currants, citron, apples, wine, brandy, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the meat before chopping it.

  2. Seed the raisins.

  3. Wash and pick the currants.

  4. Slice the citron.

  5. Peel, core, and chop the apples.

Mix

  1. Mix all ingredients together, adding the liquids last.

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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beef, tongue, or heart
Provides the meaty body of the mince, giving it chew and savoury depth.
Suet
Adds fat that carries flavour and keeps the mixture moist and rich.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that balances the sweetness.
Brandy
Adds aroma and acts as a preservative alongside the sugar.

The step that matters

Adding the liquids last. Mixing the wine and brandy in last lets the dry ingredients combine evenly first, so the spirits are spread through the mixture rather than pooling and making the solids soggy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sugar, raisin, apple, wine, brandy, cinnamon):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, raisin, apple, wine, brandy, cinnamon. 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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