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Dessert

Mother's Mince Meat

A sweet preserve of beef, suet, dried fruit, spices, and alcohol, used as pie filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Mother's Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat and suet

  1. Boil the beef until tender.

  2. When cold, chop very fine.

  3. Chop the suet almost to a powder, removing all stringy parts.

Make the mincemeat

  1. In a large stone crock, combine the beef and suet with the raisins, currants, citron, cloves, cinnamon, and mace.

  2. Boil the cider with the brown sugar until reduced by half. Let it cool.

  3. Add the cooled cider and brandy to the crock and stir thoroughly.

  4. Cover the mixture and let it sit until ready to use.

Bake and serve

  1. When making pies, peel, core, and chop fine some sour apples.

  2. For every bowl of prepared meat, add two bowls of apples, more sugar to taste, and enough hot sweet cider to make it juicy. Mix and warm the ingredients before filling the pies.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Brandy + cidertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the meaty body and substance that gives mincemeat its traditional texture.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the filling moist and smooth-textured.
Raisins
Contribute sweetness and chewy moisture to the filling.
Currants
Add concentrated fruit sweetness and chewy texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture while it rests.
French brandy
Adds aroma and helps preserve the mixture during aging.

The step that matters

Let the mixture sit until ready to use. Resting lets the brandy, cider, sugar and spices blend and soften the meat and fruit, and the alcohol and sugar help keep the mixture stable while it matures.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, raisin, currant, clove, cinnamon, brandy, cider):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, raisin, currant, clove, cinnamon, brandy, cider. 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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