Skip to main content
Main

Christmas Mince-meat

A Christmas mince-meat made with boiled beef, tongue, lean beef, suet, apples, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,920 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Christmas Mince-meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Soak the tongue overnight in cold water if it is hard and dry.

  2. In the morning, place the tongue in a large pot with cold water and bring to a boil.

  3. Once boiling, pour off the water and replace it with fresh cold water.

  4. Heat the water with the tongue to boiling again and boil for 1 hour.

  5. After 1 hour, add 3 pounds of lean beef and 1 tablespoon of salt to the pot.

  6. Continue boiling gently for 3 more hours.

  7. Remove the pot from heat.

  8. Take out the tongue.

  9. Skin the tongue.

  10. Return the tongue to the pot.

  11. Let the tongue and beef cool in the pot liquor.

  12. Once cool, remove skin and gristle from the beef.

  13. Chop the beef finely.

  14. Trim the tongue, discarding gristle.

  15. Chop the tongue until 2 pounds with trimmings.

  16. Chop 3 pounds of fresh beef suet.

Mix the mincemeat

  1. Add the suet to the chopped beef and tongue.

  2. Mix in 4 pounds of chopped tart apples.

  3. Mix in 4 pounds of stoned raisins.

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. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

  2. Beef + raisintop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,273 recipes

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

  3. Beef + appletop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the mincemeat moist and rich in texture.
Tart apples
Add acidity and moisture, balancing the sweetness of the raisins.
Stoned raisins
Provide sweetness and chewy body to the mincemeat.
Tongue
Gives a rich, gelatin-filled meat base that adds body to the filling.

The step that matters

Continue boiling gently for 3 more hours. A gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and lets collagen break down into gelatin without toughening the fibers. A hard boil would make the meat tough and the cooking liquor cloudy.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, raisin):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, raisin. 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