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Dessert

Mince Meat

A fruit preserve made with lemons, apples, raisins, currants, suet, sugar, candied peel, brandy, and marmalade.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Cut the rinds off the lemons, squeeze out the juice, and strain it.

  2. Boil the remaining lemons until tender, then pulp or chop them finely.

  3. Add the baked apples (skins and cores removed) to the lemon pulp.

  4. Omit some or all of the lemon pith if you prefer it less bitter.

Mix and store

  1. Mix in the remaining ingredients one by one, stirring thoroughly.

  2. Transfer the mince meat to a stone jar with a tight-fitting lid.

  3. Let it sit for two weeks before using.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  5. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 mince moist and gives a rich, tender texture.
Raisins
Provide sweetness and chewy body that fills out the mixture.
Currants
Add concentrated fruit sweetness and small chewy bits throughout the mince.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the mixture soft and moist.
Lemons
Provide acidity and bright aroma that balance the sweet, rich fruit.
Apples
Add moisture and soft body that helps bind the fruit together.

The step that matters

Let it sit for two weeks before using. Resting lets the sugar, alcohol and fruit flavours blend and mellow, so the mince tastes rounder than it does fresh. Using it too early gives sharper, less unified flavour.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, apple, raisin, sugar, orange, brandy. 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 fruit mince recipes

Meat 6Pie 5 See all 11 →

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