Skip to main content
Main

Mince Meat

A minced beef mixture cooked with apples, raisins, spices, and sugar, then cooled and canned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the beef in water until cooked, then cool and chop finely.

  2. Strain the cooking water and add it to the mixture.

  3. Mince the suet to a powder and combine with the chopped beef.

Cook the mincemeat

  1. Add the apples, raisins, Sultanas, currants, citron, cinnamon, cloves, salt, nutmeg, brown sugar, and vinegar.

  2. Cook slowly, stirring frequently until the apples are cooked.

  3. Taste the mixture; adjust sweetness with vinegar or sugar as needed.

  4. If too dry, add cold coffee for moisture.

  5. Bottle or can like fruit.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the meaty body of the mincemeat once cooked and finely chopped.
Suet
Adds richness and moisture, as its fat softens and coats the other ingredients during cooking.
Apples
Contribute moisture, tartness and body that break down as the mixture cooks.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour, and helps preserve the mixture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the mixture.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.

The step that matters

Cook slowly, stirring frequently until the apples are cooked. Slow cooking with frequent stirring keeps the dense mixture from scorching on the bottom of the pan while the apples soften and blend evenly with the fats and sugar.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, raisin, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes