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Fruit Mince-pies

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Fruit Mince-pies

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pick over, wash, and dry the currants with a towel.

  2. Slice the citron and seed the raisins.

  3. Remove skin and membrane from the beef suet and chop it finely.

  4. Pare and core the apples, then chop them finely.

  5. Grate the rind and squeeze the juice of the lemon and orange.

  6. Mix all ingredients thoroughly.

  7. Add sugar, brandy, port, and spices to taste.

  8. If not using all the mince, pack it tightly in glass jars, cover with paper dipped in brandy, and seal jars airtight.

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. Currant + raisintop 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

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, beef, apple, lemon, orange, sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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