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Mince Pies

A savory pastry filling of cooked lean meat, suet, fruit, spices, and brown sugar, simmered with cider.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Mince Pies

Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mince Pies

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the cooked and chopped meat, suet, lemon, apples, mace, currants, cinnamon, raisins, allspice, citron, cloves, brown sugar, and coarse sea salt in a large pot.

  2. Wet the mixture with boiled cider and cook together until well combined and heated through.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 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

Meat
Provides the savory, substantial body of the filling.
Suet
Adds richness and moisture, coating the other ingredients as it melts.
Apples
Contribute moisture and tartness, balancing the sweetness of the sugar and dried fruit.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, and helps preserve the filling.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Currants
Add small chewy bursts of fruit flavor and sweetness.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, lemon, apple, currant, cinnamon, raisin, allspice):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, lemon, apple, currant, cinnamon, raisin, 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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