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The Duke of Gloucester's Recipe for Mince Meat

A preserved fruit and suet mixture flavored with spices, brandy, sherry, and cider.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

The Duke of Gloucester's Recipe for Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemons

  1. Squeeze the juice from the lemons.

  2. Boil the rind and pulp in two or three waters to extract bitterness.

  3. Pound the boiled mixture in a mortar until smooth.

Combine and store

  1. Combine the smooth mixture with the suet, currants, raisins, brown sugar, almonds, citron, brandy, and chopped apples.

  2. Add cloves, mace, nutmeg, ginger, salt, sherry, and cider. Mix thoroughly and store in a cool place.

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 + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Brandy + appletop 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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture as it melts and coats the other ingredients.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses depth, and helps preserve the mixture.
Brandy
Acts as a preservative and adds warmth and aroma to the mincemeat.
Currants
Provide concentrated sweetness and chewy texture, plus fruity flavour.
Apples
Add moisture, tartness and body to the mixture.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright aroma; the boiled rind contributes the bitter-citrus notes.

The step that matters

Boil the rind and pulp in two or three waters. Changing the boiling water removes bitter compounds from the citrus peel. Skipping this leaves the mincemeat harshly bitter, because the peel's oils and bitter compounds dissolve gradually in hot water.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, currant, raisin, sugar, almond, brandy, apple. 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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