Why it works: Apple and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓
Mince Meat
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the meat, suet, apples, currants, raisins, citron, and spices together.
Add cider and boil until the apples are tender.
Seal the mixture in bottles.
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.
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Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,238 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Currant + cidertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together500 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,180 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,918 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,920 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 raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, apple, currant, cider):
- Plumfits better
- Pearfits better
- Figfits better
- Raisinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against meat, apple, currant, cider. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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