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Dessert

Mince Meat

A sweet meat mixture of beef or tongue, suet, raisins, apples, sugar, spices, citrus, and spirits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mince

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.

  2. Let the mixture stand for several days before using.

Bake and serve

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cover a dish with light puff pastry and fill it with the mixture.

  3. Cover with more pastry and bake until golden brown.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Sultana raisins
Add sweetness and moisture, plumping as the mixture stands.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture.
Madeira
Adds liquid and a rich, fortified wine flavour.
Chopped apples
Add moisture, tartness and body to the filling.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture stand for several days. Resting lets the sugar, spirits and fruit juices soak into the dried fruit and blend the spices, so the flavour matures and softens. Using it too soon gives a harsher, less rounded filling.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, apple, beef, sugar, nutmeg, allspice, 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 mince meat recipes

Pie Filling 11Pie 10with Apples 9Preserved 8Apple 7Mock 7 See all 183 →

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