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Dessert

Mince Pie

A pie made from minced beef, suet, fruit, spices, and sweetened with cider, brandy, wine, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Boil the beef until tender.

  2. Let it cool and chop finely.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the chopped beef with the suet, salt, apples, currants, raisins, and citron.

  2. Season the mixture with cinnamon, mace, cloves, and nutmeg to taste.

  3. Add boiled cider, brandy, and wine until the mixture is quite soft. Mix well.

Store

  1. Pack into stone jars.

  2. Pour brandy over the top.

  3. Cover tightly.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the meaty body of the filling once boiled and finely chopped.
Suet
Adds richness and a soft, moist texture to the filling.
Apples
Contribute moisture and tartness that balance the sweetness of the fruit.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the filling.

The step that matters

Adding the liquids until the mixture is quite soft. The boiled cider, brandy, and wine must be added gradually and mixed in fully so the filling softens evenly. Too little liquid leaves the mixture dry and crumbly, while too much makes it runny and harder to keep.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, raisin, cinnamon, mace, clove, nutmeg. 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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