Name: Mince Meat
Ingredients: 7.5 pounds meat; 3.5 pounds suet; ½ bushel good apples, chopped fine; 6 pounds raisins; 2 ounces ground cinnamon; 1 ounce ground cloves; 18 pounds sugar

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Boil the meat for about 1 hour.
When the meat is almost done, add the suet and let it cook.
Mix in the chopped apples, raisins, cinnamon, cloves, and sugar thoroughly.
Transfer the mixture into jars for storage.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,598 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,774 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,070 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat: Provides the savory base and body of the filling once cooked and combined.
Suet: Adds fat that keeps the mincemeat moist and rich as it cooks and stores.
Apples: Contribute moisture, tartness and texture that balance the sweetness.
Raisins: Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the mixture.
Sugar: Sweetens the filling and helps preserve it during storage.

Swap the apple

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Orangefits about as well
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, raisin, cinnamon, clove, sugar. 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.