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Mince Meat

A preserved meat mixture of beef, apples, suet, dried fruit, spices, sugar, and liquids, packed into jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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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

Prepare

  1. Chop the cold boiled beef into small pieces.

  2. Combine the beef with apples, suet, currants, raisins, and citron in a large bowl.

Season and pack

  1. Add sugar, liquor, boiled cider, molasses, ground cloves, ground cinnamon, ground pepper, coarse sea salt, nutmegs, and lemon juice, then mix all ingredients thoroughly.

  2. Pack the mixture into fruit jars for storage.

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. Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Currant + cidertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together500 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 and bulk of the mincemeat filling.
Apples
Add moisture, tartness and body to the filling as they break down.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the filling moist and tender.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps preserve it by binding water.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and depth of flavour to the filling.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness, chewy texture and body to the filling.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, apple, raisin, sugar, meat, cider, molasses):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, raisin, sugar, meat, cider, molasses. 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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