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Mince Meat

A savory loaf of minced beef mixed with apples, raisins, spices, and sweeteners, cooked slowly and packed into crocks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Run the beef, suet, and 1 quart of raisins through a meat grinder.

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

  3. Cut the citron very fine.

  4. Grate the nutmeg and lemon peel.

  5. If using dried apples, soak them overnight in vinegar.

Cook and pack

  1. Mix all ingredients together and cook slowly for several hours, ensuring it does not burn.

  2. Pack into small crocks, cover with melted paraffin, then with a cloth.

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

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

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

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

  3. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Vinegar + cidertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the meaty body and bulk that the mincemeat is built on.
Suet
Adds fat that gives a rich, moist texture as it melts during cooking.
Apples
Supply moisture, tartness, and body that hold the filling together.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and a deeper, caramel-like flavor.
Light brown sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it thicken and darken as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cook slowly and stir to prevent burning. The mixture is rich in sugar, fat, and solids, so it scorches easily over direct heat. Slow cooking over several hours lets the flavors blend and the apples soften without the bottom catching.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, apple, molasses, vinegar, cider, sugar, cinnamon):

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, molasses, vinegar, cider, sugar, cinnamon. 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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