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Cooked Meat for Mince Pies

A seasoned beef mixture with apples, suet, dried fruit, molasses, cider, and spices for use in mince pies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Cooked Meat for Mince Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beef

  1. Wash the beef and place it in a kettle with enough water to cover it.

  2. Bring to a boil, skimming off the scum, and add hot water as needed until tender.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then boil uncovered until almost dry.

  4. When the meat begins to fry in its own juice, remove it and let it cool.

  5. The next day, pick out bones, gristle, and stringy bits before chopping the meat.

Make the filling

  1. In a large bowl, mix the chopped beef, apples, suet, raisins, currants, citron, brown sugar, molasses, sweet cider, boiled cider, and spices thoroughly.

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

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Currant + cidertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together500 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the meaty body of the filling, and its juices add savoury depth.
Green tart apples
Add acidity and moisture, keeping the filling from tasting flat or cloying.
Suet
Adds fat that gives a rich, moist texture to the filling.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, caramel-like flavour.
Molasses
Adds dark colour, sweetness and a rich, slightly bitter depth.

The step that matters

Boil the beef until almost dry. Simmering in water first makes the meat tender, then boiling it down concentrates flavour. If the meat is left too wet, the filling will be soggy and dilute, so it must be reduced until the meat begins to fry in its own juice.

Flavor stand-ins for the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, apple, raisin, sugar, molasses, cider):

  1. Figbetter flavor fit
  2. Plumbetter flavor fit
  3. Grapebetter flavor fit
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, apple, raisin, sugar, molasses, cider. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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