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Mixce Meat

A stew of chopped meat and apples simmered with sweet cider, molasses, sugar, currants, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Mixce Meat

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the chopped meat and apples in a large pot.

  2. Add the boiled sweet cider, molasses, sugar, currants, raisins, salt, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally.

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. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Cider + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together500 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Provides the savoury body and bulk that the filling is built around.
Apples
Add moisture, tartness and body that balance the sweetness of the filling.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and a rich, deep flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture while it cooks.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, apple, cider, molasses, sugar, raisin, 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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