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Dessert

Real English Mince Meat

A preserved mixture of beef suet, dried fruit, spices, lemon, and rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Real English Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop all ingredients well and mix thoroughly.

  2. Place the mixture in jars.

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. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  3. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds richness and moisture, and melts to keep the mincemeat soft and juicy.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and acts as a preservative by drawing out moisture.
Raisins
Provide chewy texture and concentrated natural sweetness.
Apples
Add moisture, tartness and body to the filling.
Currants
Add small chewy bursts of fruit and sweetness throughout.
Rum
Adds aroma and helps preserve the mixture.

The step that matters

Chop all ingredients well and mix thoroughly. Even chopping gives a uniform texture and spreads the sugar, fruit and fat evenly, so every spoonful tastes the same and the mixture keeps well in the jars.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, raisin, apple, sugar, currant, cinnamon, almond. 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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