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Mince Meat

A sweet and spiced meat mixture of apples, beef, suet, currants, raisins, citron, and molasses, boiled with cider and vinegar.

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

Prepare

  1. Chop the apples, suet, beef, currants, raisins, and citron.

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, boil the coffee sugar, vinegar, water, and molasses.

Combine

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the chopped ingredients.

  2. Add the boiled cider and mix well.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provides moisture and bulk, and a tart fruity flavour that balances the sweetness.
Suet
Adds fat that gives the mixture richness and a moist, rounded texture.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and a chewy texture through the mixture.
Coffee sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves into the hot liquid to flavour the fruit and meat.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the sugar.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness and a dark colour with a rich, mellow flavour.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot mixture over the chopped ingredients. Pouring the syrup while it is still hot helps the sugar dissolve fully and lets the liquid soak into the chopped fruit and meat, so the flavour spreads evenly through the mixture.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, beef, raisin, cinnamon, clove, pepper, coffee. 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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