Name: Egg Mince Meat
Ingredients: 6 hard boiled eggs, chopped very fine; 1 cup beef suet, chopped; 2 cups currants; peel of 2 lemons, minced; 6 tablespoons sweet wine; ¼ teaspoon mace; ¼ teaspoon nutmeg; salt to taste; ¼ pound candied orange and citron, cut into thin slices

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Egg Mince Meat

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the hard-boiled eggs very finely.
Add the beef suet, currants, minced lemon peel, sweet wine, mace, nutmeg, and salt.
Mix well together and press into a jar until needed.
Add apple as for pies made with meat.

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,746 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Currant + macetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,791 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Chopped eggs add body and a soft, binding texture to the filling.
Beef suet: Beef suet adds richness and fat, keeping the filling moist and tender.
Currants: Currants add sweetness and a chewy texture as they soften in the mixture.
Lemon peel: Minced lemon peel adds bright aroma and a touch of acidity.
Sweet wine: Sweet wine adds moisture and sweetness, and blends the flavors together.
Candied orange and citron: Candied orange and citron add sweetness and a concentrated citrus aroma.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, beef, lemon, wine, mace, nutmeg, orange):

Limefits better
Figfits better
Blackberryfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, beef, lemon, wine, mace, nutmeg, orange. 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.