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Mince Pie

A pie filled with minced boiled tongue, suet, currants, apples, citrus, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mince Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the boiled tongue and suet finely.

  2. Mix in the currants, chopped apples, lemon peel, and juice.

  3. Add the sweet wine, nutmeg, cloves, mace, citron, and orange and lemon peel.

  4. Combine all ingredients thoroughly and let sit to meld flavors.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill a pie crust with the mixture 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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Clove + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the filling moist and tender.
Currants
Provide sweetness and chewy body throughout the filling.
Apples
Add moisture and a tart note that balances the sweetness.
Boiled tongue
Supplies meaty bulk and savoury depth to the filling.
Sweet wine
Adds moisture and a fruity, aromatic sweetness to the filling.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, lemon, wine, nutmeg, clove, mace, orange):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, lemon, wine, nutmeg, clove, mace, orange. 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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