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Dessert

Mincemeat, Excellent

A preserved fruit mixture of lemons, apples, raisins, currants, suet, sugar, candied citrus, brandy, and marmalade.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Mincemeat, Excellent

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Grate the rinds of the lemons and squeeze out the juice.

  2. Strain and boil the remaining lemon pulp until tender enough to chop finely.

  3. Bake the apples, remove their skins and cores, and add them to the lemon pulp.

Mix and store

  1. Mix in the remaining ingredients one by one, ensuring everything is thoroughly combined.

  2. Transfer the mincemeat into a 36 oz jar with a tightly fitting lid.

  3. Let it sit for two weeks before using.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Add moisture and body, and a tart fruitiness that balances the sweetness.
Moist brown sugar
Provides sweetness and moisture, and helps preserve the mixture.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that gives the mincemeat a soft, moist texture.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Brandy
Adds aroma and helps preserve the mixture.

The step that matters

Letting it sit for two weeks. Resting lets the sugar, alcohol and spices soak into the fruit and blend their flavours, so the mincemeat tastes mellow rather than sharp. Using it too soon gives a harsher, less rounded flavour.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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