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Dessert

Mincemeat, Excellent

A preserved fruit and suet mixture flavored with lemon, apples, raisins, currants, candied peel, brandy, and marmalade.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Mincemeat, Excellent

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Grate the rinds of the lemons and squeeze out the juice.

  2. Boil the remaining lemons until tender, then pulp or chop finely.

  3. Add the baked apples (skins and cores removed) to the lemon pulp.

Mix and rest

  1. Mix in the remaining ingredients one by one, stirring thoroughly after each addition.

  2. Transfer the mincemeat to a stone jar with a tightly fitting lid.

  3. Let it sit for two weeks before using.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  5. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps preserve the mincemeat.
Suet
Adds fat for richness and a moist, tender texture.
Apples
Add moisture, body and a mild tartness to the filling.
Lemons
Provide acidity and bright aroma from the rind and juice.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and a chewy texture.
Brandy
Adds aroma and helps preserve the mixture during resting.

The step that matters

Letting it rest for two weeks. Resting lets the sugar, alcohol, fruit and spices blend and mellow, so the flavours become rounder. Using it too early tastes sharper and less cohesive.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, apple, raisin, sugar, orange, brandy):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, apple, raisin, sugar, orange, brandy. 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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