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Mince Meat

A preserved minced beef mixture with apples, raisins, currants, sugar, and spices, stored in a jar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the boiled beef finely.

  2. Combine the beef, suet, chopped apples, raisins, currants, and sugar in a large bowl.

  3. Add the lemon juice, cloves, cinnamon, and grated nutmeg.

  4. Thin the mixture with cider and adjust the flavor with cherry juice.

  5. Mix all ingredients thoroughly.

Store

  1. Transfer to a jar and store in a 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled beef
Provides the meaty body and bulk that the mixture is built around.
Suet
Adds richness and a moist, fatty mouthfeel to the filling.
Apples
Contribute moisture and tartness that balance the sweetness.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps preserve it.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps keep the mixture fresh.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

More mince meat recipes

Pie Filling 11Pie 10with Apples 9Preserved 8Apple 7Mock 7 See all 183 →

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