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Mince Meat

A minced beef mixture with suet, apples, raisins, sultanas, currants, citron, spices, brown sugar, and sweet cider.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef and suet

  1. Boil the beef until tender, then let it cool and chop it finely.

  2. Mince the suet to a powder.

Combine and store

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped beef, suet, apples, raisins, sultanas, currants, citron, cinnamon, mace, allspice, salt, nutmeg, brown sugar, and sweet cider. Mix all ingredients thoroughly until well combined.

  2. Store the mince meat in a cool place; it will keep until spring.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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 savoury bulk that gives the mincemeat its texture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and gives it a rich mouthfeel.
Apples
Supply moisture and tartness that balance the sweetness of the sugar and dried fruit.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps preserve the mixture.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, apple, raisin, cinnamon, mace, allspice, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, raisin, cinnamon, mace, allspice, nutmeg. 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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