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Dessert

Mince Pie

A pie made with boiled tongue, suet, currants, apples, lemon, wine, sugar, salt, flour, spices, citron, and citrus peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mince Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. In a large bowl, combine the boiled tongue, suet, currants, chopped apples, lemon peel and juice, sweet wine, sugar, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Stir in the flour, nutmeg, cloves, mace, citron, and orange and lemon peel until well mixed.

Bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pie crust and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich during baking.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and helps the filling brown as it bakes.
Flour
Thickens the filling so it holds together rather than running out.
Currants
Add sweetness, chew and body to the filling.
Boiled tongue
Contributes savory meat flavor and substance to the filling.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, lemon, wine, sugar, flour, nutmeg, clove. 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.

More mince pie recipes

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