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Preserve

Mince Meat

A spiced mixture of meat, suet, apples and dried fruit, kept in jars and used to fill pies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cassia match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 194 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the beef heart with the suet and meat until tender.

  2. Wash, quarter, and chop the apples without peeling them.

Make the filling

  1. Boil the apples in the liquid used to cook the meat.

  2. Once the apples are thoroughly cooked, blend in the chopped meat and seasonings.

  3. Cook everything together until well combined.

Store and use

  1. Store in covered stone jars.

  2. When making pies, add raisins and nutmeg to each pie.

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. Clove + cassiatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together194 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + raisintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that gives the filling richness and a moist, rounded texture.
Apples
Provide moisture, body and tartness that bind the filling together.
Beef heart
Supplies the cooked meat that becomes the savory base of the filling.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to each pie.
Currants
Add sweetness and small chewy pieces throughout the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the apples thoroughly. Apples must be fully softened so they break down and blend evenly with the meat and seasonings. Undercooked apples stay firm and separate from the filling, so the mixture will not combine smoothly.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, meat, apple, pepper, cider, clove, cassia):

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, apple, pepper, cider, clove, cassia. 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 mincemeat recipes

Mock Pie 26Pie 21Lemon 15Fritters 14Green Tomato 13Pies 13 See all 120 →

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