Skip to main content
Main

English Mince Meat

A savory mixture of tender beef, suet, apples, candied citrus, dried fruit, sugar, spices, brandy, and sweet cider.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

English Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Boil the beef until tender, then remove all fat and skins.

Mix the filling

  1. Chop the beef finely and mix it with the suet, apples, candied citron, candied lemon, raisins, currants, sugar, and spices.

  2. Add brandy to taste and mix in sweet cider.

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 main meaty body of the filling once boiled and finely chopped.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the mixture moist and rich in texture.
Cooking apples
Add moisture and tartness that balance the sugar and dried fruit.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness to the filling.
Currants
Add concentrated fruit sweetness and chewy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps preserve it.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, apple, raisin, currant, sugar, brandy, cinnamon):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, raisin, currant, sugar, brandy, 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes