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Mince Meat

A minced meat mixture with raisins, currants, apples, spices, and suet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine the raisins, currants, and brown sugar.

  2. Add the minced apples, sweet cider, grated nutmegs, cinnamon, allspice, and molasses.

  3. Stir in the minced lemon and citron peel, mixed essence, minced beef, and suet. Mix all ingredients thoroughly until well combined.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Provide sweetness and chewy body that holds the filling together.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps preserve the filling.
Apples
Contribute moisture and tartness, balancing the sweetness of the fruit and sugar.
Lean beef
Adds savory richness and body to the filling.
Suet
Adds fat that gives a rich mouthfeel and carries the spices.
Molasses
Adds depth, dark color and moisture to the mixture.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, apple, cider, nutmeg, cinnamon, 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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