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Mince Pie

A fruit and beef pie made with suet, apples, raisins, spices, and wine, baked in stone jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Mince Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the beef until well done.

  2. Let the beef cool.

  3. Chop the beef finely.

  4. Chop the suet and apples.

  5. Add the chopped suet and apples to the beef.

Mix the filling

  1. Mix the brown sugar and spices.

  2. Add the wine, brandy, lemon juice, and orange juice.

  3. Combine the raisins, currants, citron, and grated rinds of lemon and orange.

  4. Gradually mix the three sets of ingredients.

  5. Add the salt to the liquid mixture.

Store

  1. Pack the mixture into stone jars.

  2. Cover the jars closely.

  3. Store the jars in a dry, cool place.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  4. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

Beef tenderloin
Provides the bulk of the meat, which is cooked first and then chopped into the filling.
Suet
Adds richness and a moist, rounded fat through the filling.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that balance the sugar and spices.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture while it keeps.
Brandy
Acts as a preservative and adds aroma to the mixture.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Let the beef cool before mixing. Adding warm meat to the suet and fruit can melt the fat and soften the mixture, so it should cool fully before the other ingredients are combined.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

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