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Dessert

Mince Meat

A sweet mixture of beef suet, apples, currants, raisins, spices, and citrus, boiled and preserved in a jar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemon sweetmeat

  1. Peel the lemons thickly without cutting into the pulp.

  2. Boil the lemon peel in plenty of water until soft.

  3. Beat the boiled lemon peel with the sugar until it becomes a sweetmeat.

Combine and store

  1. In a large bowl, mix the currants and finely chopped suet with the sweetmeat.

  2. Add the juice of 3-4 lemons and the brandy, mixing well.

  3. In another bowl, combine the chopped apples, washed currants, chopped raisins, moist sugar, citron, orange and lemon peel, grated nutmeg, ground salt, ginger, allspice, and cloves.

  4. Add the lemon juice and grated rind to this mixture.

  5. Combine both mixtures thoroughly and transfer to a jar.

  6. Store in a cool place.

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

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

  5. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the mixture moist and tender.
Apples
Add moisture and body, and a fruity tang to the filling.
Currants
Contribute chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture through its moisture.
Lemons
Provide acidity and aroma from the juice and peel.

Swap the currant

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

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

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