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Dessert

Mince Meat

Mincemeat is a mixture of chopped meat, suet, dried fruit, spices, and cider, used as a filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the meat and suet finely.

  2. Mix the chopped meat and suet with raisins, currants, apples, and brown sugar.

  3. Grate the nutmegs and add them along with cinnamon, cloves, salt, and citron.

  4. Pour in the cider and mix thoroughly.

Store

  1. Store in a cool place until ready to use.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Forms the bulk of the filling, giving it savoury richness and body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it stands.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the mixture and adds a deeper, molasses-like flavour.
Apples
Add moisture, tartness, and bulk to the filling.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, raisin, apple, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, raisin, apple, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove. 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

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