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Dessert

Lemon Mince Meat

A preserved fruit mixture of lemon, suet, raisins, currants, spices, brandy, and port, stored in a jar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and port wine work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 127 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Lemon Mince Meat

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemons

  1. Boil the lemons in water until reduced to 1 pint.

  2. Squeeze the lemons.

  3. Strain the lemon juice into the powdered sugar.

  4. Mince the rind and pulp of the lemons, removing all seeds.

Prepare the fruit and suet

  1. Stone the raisins. Chop the raisins.

  2. Mince the suet finely.

Mix and store

  1. Mix the minced lemons, raisins, suet, and currants.

  2. Add the ground spices, brandy, port wine, and the reserved lemon water.

  3. Store the mixture in a tightly covered jar until needed.

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. Brandy + port winetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Currant + port winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together356 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons
Provide the bright acidic flavour and aromatic oils from the rind and pulp.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the filling moist and tender.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit flavour.
Brandy
Adds aroma and helps preserve the mixture.

The step that matters

Remove all seeds when mincing the lemons. Lemon seeds are bitter and hard, and any left in the mixture will spoil the texture and taste of the finished mincemeat.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, raisin, currant, brandy, port wine):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, currant, brandy, port wine. 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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