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Mince Meat

A minced beef mixture with apples, raisins, currants, spices, and cider, cooked slowly and stored in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 the meat

  1. Place the beef in a small pot and cover with boiling water.

  2. Cook for three hours, keeping the water at a gentle bubble.

  3. Remove from heat and let the meat cool in the water with the lid off.

  4. Once cool, remove all fat and gristle, and chop the meat finely.

Combine and macerate

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped meat with all other ingredients except the cider, and mix well.

  2. Add the cider and let the mixture sit in a cold place overnight.

Cook and store

  1. The next morning, transfer the mixture to a porcelain kettle and heat slowly to boiling.

  2. Simmer gently for one hour.

  3. Store the mixture in stone jars or glass jars with seals in a cold place.

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 + 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. 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

Round beef
Provides the bulk of the meat and a savoury body once cooked and chopped.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that balance the sweetness of the sugar and raisins.
Suet
Adds fat that gives the filling richness and a moist, mellow texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture during long cold storage.
Cider
Adds liquid and acidity that soften the fruit and blend the spices.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture through the filling.

The step that matters

Heating slowly to boiling, then a gentle simmer. Heating gradually and simmering gently, rather than boiling hard, keeps the fruit intact and prevents the sugar and fat from scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, raisin, sugar, molasses, 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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