Skip to main content
Main

Mince Meat

A sweet and spiced meat mixture cooked with apples, currants, raisins, citron, sugar, molasses, preserves, spices, sherry, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the beef, suet, chopped apples, currants, raisins, citron, and brown sugar in a large pot.

  2. Add the juice and grated peel of the lemons, molasses, preserves, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and grated nutmeg, then boil the mixture for a few minutes.

  3. Add the sherry and brandy just before sealing 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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides meaty body and savory richness to the filling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it cooks.
Apples
Contribute moisture, tartness and bulk to the filling.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deep caramel note to the mixture.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and depth of flavor.
Brandy
Adds aroma and helps preserve the mixture when sealed.

The step that matters

Adding the sherry and brandy. Alcohol added just before sealing preserves the mixture and carries aroma; adding it too early in a hot pot lets much of the volatile aroma cook off.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, raisin, sugar, lemon, molasses, cinnamon. 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 meat recipes

Pie Filling 11Pie 10with Apples 9Preserved 8Apple 7Mock 7 See all 183 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes