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Mrs Bast's Mince Meat

A preserved mixture of beef, suet, dried fruit, spices, and cider.

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

Mrs Bast's Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely chop the lean beef and suet.

  2. Mix in the raisins, currants, brown sugar, and chopped apples.

  3. Add the citron, cloves, cinnamon, mace, and grated nutmeg.

  4. Stir in cider to achieve desired consistency.

Store

  1. Store in a cool place until ready to 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. 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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the meaty body of the filling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture.
Currants
Add concentrated fruit sweetness and chewy texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses-like depth.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir in cider to achieve desired consistency. Cider adds liquid that softens the mixture, but too much makes the filling wet and prone to spoiling. Add it gradually and stop when the mixture holds together and feels moist rather than soupy.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, raisin, currant, sugar, apple, clove, cinnamon. 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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