Skip to main content
Dessert

To Make Mincemeat for Pies

A mixture of boiled feet, fruit, suet, and spices used as pie filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

To Make Mincemeat for Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the calves or hogs' feet until perfectly tender, then strain through a colander.

  2. Once cooled, strain again until it resembles pearl barley.

Make the mincemeat

  1. In a large bowl, combine the strained feet, chopped apples, currants, raisins, brown sugar, suet, cider, brandy, mace, cloves, and nutmeg.

  2. Mix all ingredients thoroughly.

  3. When ready to make pies, take out the desired amount of mincemeat and add black pepper and salt to each quart.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover pie molds with pastry, fill with mincemeat, top with thinly sliced citron, and cover with a decorative pastry lid.

  2. Bake until golden and serve hot or cold.

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

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

  2. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Cider + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Calves or hogs' feet
Gives body and a gelatinous texture as the mincemeat sets and holds together.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the filling moist and tender.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses depth that helps preserve the mixture.
Brandy
Adds aroma and acts as a preservative in the filling.
Apples
Add moisture, tartness and body to the filling.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.

The step that matters

Straining the boiled feet. The feet must be boiled until fully tender and strained fine enough to break into small pieces, so they blend into the filling and give a smooth, cohesive texture rather than chunks of tough meat or gristle.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, currant, raisin, sugar, cider, brandy, clove):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, currant, raisin, sugar, cider, brandy, clove. 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.

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes