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Dessert

Mock Mince Meat

A sweet fruit preserve made with crackers, sugar, water, vinegar, butter, raisins, salt, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Mock Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine the pounded crackers, sugar, and water.

  2. Stir in the vinegar and melted butter until well mixed.

  3. Add the raisins, and season with salt and spice to taste.

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. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + raisintop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Pounded crackers
Provide bulk and body, soaking up the liquid to form the filling's base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and rich butter.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, mellow mouthfeel.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the mixture.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, butter. 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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