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Minced Meat

A savory minced meat mixture of tongue or beef, suet, apples, currants, raisins, spices, Madeira wine, brandy, and sweet cider.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Minced Meat

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 ↓

Minced Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat and suet

  1. Boil the meat in salted water until tender.

  2. Once cold, chop the meat very fine.

  3. Remove every particle of membrane from the suet and chop it fine.

Mix the mincemeat

  1. Mix the suet with the chopped meat, adding just enough salt to remove the fresh taste.

  2. Add the chopped apples, then the sugar, currants, raisins, spices, and other ingredients. Mix everything well and cover tightly.

  3. If too dry before using, moisten with a little sweet cider.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  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. Orange + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,987 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

Tongue or tender beef
Provides the main meaty body of the mincemeat once boiled and finely chopped.
Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture as its fat carries flavour through the mixture.
Chopped apples
Adds moisture, tartness and bulk that balance the sweetness of the sugar.
White sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps preserve it while the flavours blend.
Currants
Contribute sweetness, chewy texture and concentrated fruit flavour.
Madeira wine
Adds depth and aroma, and its alcohol helps preserve the mixture.

The step that matters

Adding salt to the suet and meat mixture. Salt only needs to be enough to remove the fresh taste of the meat. Too much makes the mincemeat seasoned like a savoury dish and overpowers the sweet fruit and spices, while too little leaves the meat flat.

Swap the currant

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

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

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