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Dessert

Mince Pies

A savory pie filling of finely chopped lean meat, suet, apples, currants, raisins, citron, sugar, lemon, spices, and cider.

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

Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Mince Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cook the lean meat until tender, then chop it finely.

Mix and cook

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

  2. Wet the mixture with boiled cider and mix well.

  3. Cook the mixture together over low heat until well combined.

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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

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

  4. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it cooks.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deep, molasses-like flavor to the filling.
Apples
Provide moisture, tartness and bulk to the mincemeat filling.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy body to the filling.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy body to the filling.
Lean meat
Provides savory body and texture to the traditional mincemeat filling.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture over low heat until well combined. Gentle heat lets the sugars, fruit and fats blend and soften without scorching the sugar-rich mixture, which can burn quickly over high heat.

Swap the mace

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

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

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