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Mince Meat

A mixture of boiled lean meat, beef suet, apples, raisins, currants, sugar, wine, citron, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the boiled lean meat and beef suet finely.

  2. Mix the chopped meat and suet with coarse sea salt.

  3. Chop the apples finely and add to the mixture.

  4. Pit and chop the raisins, then add them to the mixture.

  5. Add the currants and mix all ingredients thoroughly.

Season and sweeten

  1. Season with ground cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and a little mace.

  2. Stir in the brown sugar, Madeira wine, and citron.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the mixture moist and rich as it sits.
Lean meat
Provides the meaty body and bulk of the mincemeat.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that balance the sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture.
Madeira wine
Adds acidity and aroma and helps preserve the mixture.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, beef, apple, raisin, sugar, madeira wine, 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.

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