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Mince Meat for Pies

A savory mince meat mixture with apples, raisins, spices, and sweeteners, used as pie filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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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 Meat for Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Weigh and chop the beef.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the beef, suet (or butter), chopped apples, sugar, raisins, boiled cider, and water. Add cinnamon, cloves, molasses, salt, pepper, jelly, shredded citron, currants, and candied orange peel. Mix well and add juice from preserves or sweet pickle to taste.

Cook and store

  1. If using, add brandy or wine after cooking the mixture.

  2. Cook the mixture thoroughly, then scald and can it or store it in a stone jar.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

Beef
Provides the meaty body and savory base of the filling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it cooks.
Tart apples
Add acidity and moisture that balance the sweetness of the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps preserve it.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Cinnamon
Gives warm, aromatic spice flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture thoroughly, then scald and can it or store it in a stone jar.. Thorough cooking and scalding heat the mixture enough to reduce microbes, while sugar, spices and acid help it keep. Under-cooking risks spoilage in storage.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, apple, sugar, cider, meat, 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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