Name: Mince Meat for Pies or Rolls
Ingredients: 6 pounds currants; 3 pounds raisins, stoned; 3 pounds apples, chopped finely; 4 pounds suet; 2 pounds sugar; 2 pounds minced beet; peel and juice of 2 lemons; 1 pint juice from canned fruit; ½ ounce mixed spice

Why it works: Currant and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,180 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

Mince Meat for Pies or Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

Chop and mix all ingredients well together.
Press the mixture into a deep pan.

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.

Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,918 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Raisin + appletop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,920 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

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

Swap the lemon

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

Figfits better
Pearfits better
Vanillafits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, raisin, apple, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Lemon Sauce236 recipes

Apple Soup33 recipes

Tomato Soup526 recipes

Brown Bread461 recipes

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Mince Meat for Pies or Rolls