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Dessert

Lemon Mincemeat

A preserved mixture of lemons, apples, suet, currants, sugar, and spices, suitable for pies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,918 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Lemon Mincemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemons

  1. Pare the lemons.

  2. Squeeze the lemons.

  3. Boil the peel until tender enough to mash.

Make the mincemeat

  1. Add the mashed lemon peel to the pared, cored, and minced apples, chopped suet, currants, sugar, sliced peel, and mixed spice.

  2. Strain the lemon juice into the mixture and stir well.

Store and mature

  1. Transfer to a jar with a tightly fitting lid.

  2. Stir occasionally.

  3. Wait a week or 10 days; the mincemeat will be ready for 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. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + curranttop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide bulk, moisture and tartness to the filling.
Suet
Adds fat for richness and a moist, tender texture.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture by binding water.
Lemons
Supply acidity from the juice and fragrant aroma from the peel.

The step that matters

Boil the peel until fully tender. Peel left undercooked stays tough and fibrous, so it will not mash smoothly into the mincemeat. Boiling softens the peel's cell walls and pectin, letting it break down and blend evenly through the filling.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, apple, sugar. 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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