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Plain Mince Meat

A spiced minced beef mixture with apples, raisins, suet, and sweeteners.

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 ↓

Plain Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat and fruit

  1. Boil the beef until tender.

  2. Chop the boiled beef very fine.

  3. Chop the suet finely.

  4. Core and chop enough apples to weigh at least as much as the meat.

  5. Stone and chop the raisins.

Mix and season

  1. Mix the beef, suet, apples, and raisins together well.

  2. Add the brown sugar, molasses, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, black pepper, and salt.

  3. Add the lemon extract or the rind and juice of the lemons.

  4. Moisten the mixture with sweet cider or a little sharp vinegar.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 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. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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 bulk and body of the mincemeat filling.
Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture to the filling.
Apples
Add moisture, tartness and body to the filling.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the filling.
Molasses
Adds depth, dark colour and extra sweetness.

The step that matters

Moistening the mixture. Cider or vinegar should be added only as a little at a time. Too much liquid makes the filling soggy, while too little leaves it dry and crumbly, and the mixture needs enough moisture to bind the chopped ingredients together.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, raisin, sugar, molasses, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, raisin, sugar, molasses, clove, cinnamon, 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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