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Home-made Mince Meat

A preserved mixture of beef, apples, raisins, currants, citron, and spices, boiled and stored in jars or crocks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 ↓

Home-made Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the beef until fairly well cooked, then chop or grind it very fine.

  2. Add the apples, suet, raisins, currants, citron, brown sugar, molasses, sweet cider, salt, black pepper, mace, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

  3. Mix the ingredients thoroughly.

  4. Heat the mixture slowly on the stove and boil for half an hour.

Pack and store

  1. If sealing in jars, fill pint and quart jars to the brim and screw the tops down tight immediately.

  2. If keeping in bulk, stir in the brandy after the mixture has cooled nearly, then pack into stone crocks, cover tightly, and store in a cool place.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Currant + cidertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together500 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

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

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 and bulk that the rest of the filling is built around.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the filling moist and smooth-textured.
Hard green apples
Supply tartness and moisture that balance the sweetness of the sugar and molasses.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture.
Cooking molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark colour and a rich, caramel-like flavour.

The step that matters

Boil the beef until fairly well cooked, then chop or grind it very fine.. Beef left under-cooked or in large pieces stays tough and uneven in the filling. Thorough cooking and fine chopping give a tender, evenly distributed texture.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, raisin, sugar, molasses, cider, pepper. 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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