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Dessert

Fig Mince Meat Pie

A pastry pie filled with mincemeat and chopped figs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fig Mince Meat Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the pastry

  1. Sift the flour into a bowl.

  2. Rub in the butter or lard.

  3. Add the baking powder and salt.

  4. Gradually mix in enough cold water to form a stiff paste.

  5. Roll out the pastry once.

Fill and bake

  1. Line small molds with the pastry.

  2. Fill the molds with mincemeat and add a few chopped figs.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + figtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + figtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,042 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the pastry once mixed with water.
Butter or lard
Rubbed into flour to make the pastry tender and flaky.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the pastry rises and lightens.
Mincemeat
Provides the main sweet, spiced filling of the pie.
Chopped figs
Adds extra sweetness and fruity texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in enough cold water to form a stiff paste.. Adding water slowly lets you stop at the right stiffness. Too much water makes the pastry tough, because it develops gluten, and too little leaves it crumbly and hard to roll.

Swap the fig

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Figthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter. 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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