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Mince Meat

A preserved meat mixture with suet, apples, spices, and sweeteners, cooked slowly and then flavored with brandy and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 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 Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the base

  1. In a large bowl, mix the chopped meat, suet, sour apples, meat liquor, brown sugar, molasses, and cider (or cold tea).

  2. Add the lemon juice and rind, orange juice and rind, raisins, currants, citron, figs, and walnuts (if using).

  3. Stir in the coarse sea salt, cinnamon, mace, cloves, and allspice.

Cook and mature

  1. Cook slowly in a serving kettle for one hour, stirring often.

  2. After removing from the stove, add the brandy and rose water.

  3. For best flavor, pack the mince meat in an earthen jar and let it sit for several days before using.

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. Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped meat
Provides the savoury body and substance of the mincemeat.
Suet
Adds fat that gives a rich, moist texture as it melts during cooking.
Sour apples
Contribute tartness and moisture that balance the sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture while it matures.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark colour and a rich, molasses-like flavour.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Cook slowly, stirring often. Gentle, frequent stirring keeps the sugars and fruit from scorching on the bottom of the kettle while the mixture softens and the flavours blend.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, apple, sugar, molasses, cider, orange, raisin):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, apple, sugar, molasses, cider, orange, raisin. 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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