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Dessert

Meatless Mince Meat

A sweet fruit mixture of suet, raisins, currants, citron, apples, candied peel, spices, and cider, canned as a meat substitute.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Meatless Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large pot.

  2. Heat the mixture sufficiently for canning.

  3. This mixture needs no further cooking.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Orange + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together727 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the mince and helps preserve it by binding up moisture.
Suet
Adds fat that gives the filling richness and a moist, rounded mouthfeel.
Raisins
Provide concentrated sweetness and chewy body throughout the mixture.
Apples
Add moisture, tartness and body that balances the sugar.
Cider
Supplies liquid and acidity that carries the spices and fruit flavours.

The step that matters

Heating the mixture for canning. The mixture must be heated enough to be safely canned. Heat and the high sugar content together help keep the filling stable in storage, so it should not be undercooked before jarring.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, raisin, apple, orange, lemon, allspice, nutmeg):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cranberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, apple, orange, lemon, allspice, nutmeg. 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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