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Dessert

Mince Meat

A baked pie filled with salted meat, apples, molasses, vinegar, spices, raisins, sugar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Combine chopped meat and chopped apples in a large bowl.

  2. Add molasses, vinegar, butter or suet, allspice, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Mix well.

Assemble and bake

  1. To make a mince pie, line a pie tin with crust.

  2. Fill the crust with the mince meat mixture, adding raisins, sugar, and dots of butter to taste.

  3. Cover with another layer of crust and bake at 300°F (150°C) for about 30 minutes.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped meat
Forms the savoury body of the filling, giving it bulk and a rich texture.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that balance the sweetness of the molasses.
Molasses
Provides dark colour, sweetness and a deep flavour to the filling.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps balance the sweet spices.
Butter or suet
Adds fat, which gives the filling richness and a softer mouthfeel.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the filling.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, molasses, vinegar, butter, allspice, cinnamon, clove):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Orangefits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, molasses, vinegar, butter, allspice, cinnamon, 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.

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