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Mince Meat

A spiced minced beef mixture with apples, raisins, suet, and sweet pickle vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef and raisins

  1. Boil the beef until tender; it should weigh about 2 pounds.

  2. Boil the raisins until tender and reserve the cooking water.

  3. Chop the beef, apples, and suet very finely.

Make the mincemeat

  1. Combine the chopped ingredients with sugar, salt, spices, and raisins.

  2. Add the reserved cooking liquid from the beef, the water from the raisins, and the sweet pickle vinegar.

  3. If needed, add more cooking liquid to achieve desired moisture.

  4. Cook the mixture until it reaches a boiling point, then set aside for use.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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 and bulk that give mincemeat its characteristic texture.
Suet
Adds fat that carries flavor and gives a rich, moist mouthfeel.
Raisins
Contribute sweetness, chewy texture, and moisture to the filling.
Apples
Add moisture, tartness, and body that balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps preserve it by binding water.
Sweet pickle vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps preserve the mixture.

The step that matters

Adding the cooking liquid and vinegar. Liquid must be added gradually so the mixture is moist but not soupy. Too much liquid makes the filling watery and less stable, while too little leaves it dry and dense.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, raisin, cinnamon, clove, sugar, nutmeg, meat. 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.

More mince meat recipes

Pie Filling 11Pie 10with Apples 9Preserved 8Apple 7Mock 7 See all 183 →

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