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Mince Meat

A spiced minced beef mixture with citrus, spices, and sweeteners.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange 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

  1. Mix all ingredients in the order given and season with coarse sea salt.

  2. Reduce the liquor in which the meat was cooked to 3 cups.

  3. Add the reduced liquor to the mixture, bring to a boiling point, and let simmer for 1.5 hours.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped cooked beef
Provides the meaty base and bulk that the spices and fruit are mixed into.
Chopped beef suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the mixture moist and gives a silky mouthfeel.
Chopped apples
Contributes moisture, tartness and body to the mixture.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and depth of flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps preserve the mixture.

The step that matters

Add the reduced liquor and simmer. Bringing the mixture to a boil and then simmering it for the full time lets the flavours blend and the liquid thicken slightly. Boiling too hard can scorch the sugars and molasses on the bottom of the pan, so the heat should be kept gentle once it reaches a simmer.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, lemon, orange, apple, cider, cinnamon, vinegar):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, lemon, orange, apple, cider, cinnamon, vinegar. 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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