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Minced Meats

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and allspice 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 ↓

Minced Meats

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the beef and suet in a large bowl.

  2. Add the raisins, citron, currants, brown sugar, chopped apples, nutmeg, lemon peel, allspice, cinnamon, and salt.

  3. Pour in the boiled apple cider and mix thoroughly.

  4. Store the mixture in a cool, dry place for up to 2 months.

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. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

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

  5. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the meaty body and bulk of the mincemeat filling.
Suet
Adds richness and moisture, coating the other ingredients with fat.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Boiled apple cider
Supplies liquid that moistens the mixture and carries the spices.

Swap the currant

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

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

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