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Dessert

Mince Pies

A sweet and savory pie filling made with beef tongue, suet, apples, raisins, currants, citron, sugar, citrus, spices, wine, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Mince Pies

Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Mince Pies

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the beef tongue, suet, sour apples, raisins, currants, and citron in a large bowl.

  2. Add the brown sugar, orange juice and rind, lemon juice, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and mace, then mix well.

  3. Stir in the wine and brandy until fully combined.

  4. To test seasoning, bake a small pie first to ensure the flavors are balanced.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tongue
Supplies meaty richness and body to the filling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it bakes.
Sour apples
Provide acidity and moisture that balance the sweet sugar and dried fruit.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, and helps preserve the filling.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Brandy
Adds aroma and helps preserve the filling.

The step that matters

Test the seasoning with a small pie. Spices, sugar, citrus and alcohol all change in flavour as the filling bakes and matures, so balance is hard to judge from the raw mixture. Baking a small test pie shows whether the seasoning needs adjusting before the full batch is made.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, apple, raisin, sugar, orange, lemon, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, raisin, sugar, orange, lemon, nutmeg. 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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