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Mince Meat

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the chopped beef and suet in a large bowl.

  2. Add the chopped apples, sliced citron, currants, and stoned raisins.

  3. Stir in the brown sugar, ground cloves, ground cinnamon, ground mace, pepper, and salt.

  4. Add the juice and grated rind of the lemons, along with the boiled cider, molasses, and brandy.

  5. Mix thoroughly until well combined.

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, currant, raisin, sugar, clove, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

More mince meat recipes

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

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