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Imperial Mince Meat

A spiced beef mixture with dried fruit, citrus, spices, wine, and brandy, used as pie filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Imperial Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mince

  1. Chop the beef finely, removing all skin and gristle.

  2. Mince the suet and mix it with the beef.

  3. Add the raisins, currants, citron, brown sugar, lemon juice, grated rinds, nutmeg, salt, ginger, allspice, cloves, and cinnamon; mix well.

  4. Pour the wine and brandy over the mixture and combine thoroughly.

  5. Pack the mixture into small jars and store in a cool place.

Make and bake the pies

  1. To make pies, line pie plates with crust.

  2. Mix 1 pint of the mince meat with 1 pint of chopped tart apples and ⅓ cup of rose water; fill the crust half full.

  3. Dot with butter, add enough mince meat to nearly fill the plate, and cover with puff pastry.

  4. Cut a slit in the middle and bake until golden.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the bulk and meaty body of the mince once chopped finely.
Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture as it melts during baking.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy moisture to the filling.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the mince moist and rich.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, spiced filling.
Brandy
Adds aroma and helps preserve the mince in storage.

The step that matters

Store the mince in a cool place. The mince relies on sugar, alcohol and acidity to keep it stable, so it should be packed into jars and kept cool to prevent spoilage before use.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, raisin, sugar, lemon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice. 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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