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Mince-meat

A savory mixture of suet, beef, raisins, currants, citron, sour apples, sweet meat, pickle syrup, and cider, spiced with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Mince-meat

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

Mix

  1. Combine suet, beef, raisins, currants, citron, sour apples, sweet meat, pickle syrup, and thin boiled cider in a large bowl.

  2. Add cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg to taste, then mix well.

  3. If the mixture is not sweet enough, add brown sugar to taste.

Store and bake

  1. Store in a cold place in a tightly covered stone jar.

  2. Bake the mince-meat in paste-lined plates with an upper crust.

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

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

  2. Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Currant + cidertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together500 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich.
Beef
Provides savory meaty body to the filling.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture.
Sour apples
Add acidity and moisture that balance the sweetness.
Sweet meat
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the filling.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, raisin, apple, meat, syrup, cider, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, raisin, apple, meat, syrup, cider, 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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