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Mince Meat

A preserved meat mixture of beef, suet, fruit, molasses, cider, brandy, and spices, cooked slowly and stored in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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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 Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cook the beef until well done, then season with salt and pepper.

  2. Let the meat cool in the cooking water if not using the same day.

  3. Shred and chop the meat finely, removing all strings and tough pieces.

Make the mincemeat

  1. Add the chopped suet and apples to the meat.

  2. Mix in the raisins, currants, citron, orange rind and juice, lemon rind and juice, brown sugar, molasses, boiled cider, sweet cider (or wine), brandy, and spices.

  3. Stir all ingredients together well and cook slowly for 2 hours.

  4. Pour the mixture into stone jars and let it remain uncovered until the next day.

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

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

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + orangetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the meaty body of the filling once cooked and finely chopped.
Suet
Adds richness and a soft, moist texture as it melts during cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the filling its dark, rich color and depth.
Molasses
Adds dark color, deep sweetness and a rich, slightly bitter flavor.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy moisture to the filling.
Boiled cider
Adds concentrated apple flavor and acidity that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture slowly for 2 hours. Gentle, prolonged cooking blends the spices and sugars into the liquids and softens the fruit. Too fast or too hot a heat can scorch the sugars and molasses on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the currant

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

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

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