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Mince Pie

A savory pie filled with boiled tongue, suet, currants, apples, lemon, wine, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mince Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Combine the boiled tongue, suet, currants, and chopped apples in a large bowl.

  2. Add the lemon peel, lemon juice, sweet wine, and grated nutmeg, then mix all ingredients thoroughly.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill pie crusts with the mixture and bake until golden brown.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it bakes.
Currants
Provide sweetness and chewy texture throughout the filling.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that balances the sweet dried fruit.
Boiled tongue
Supplies meaty body and savoury richness to the filling.
Sweet wine
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the filling.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, lemon, wine, nutmeg):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Blackberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, lemon, wine, 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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