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Dessert

Mince-meat

A fruit and spice mixture of minced beef, apples, currants, raisins, and spices, sweetened with coffee sugar and flavored with Madeira wine and brandy.

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

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mince-meat

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ingredients

  1. Wash and dry the currants, then pick them.

  2. Stone the raisins and remove skin and sinews from the beef.

  3. Chop each ingredient separately into very fine pieces.

Mix and store

  1. Place all chopped ingredients in a large pan, then add spices, Madeira, and brandy.

  2. Mix thoroughly and pack into jars.

  3. Store in a cold 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Apples
Provide bulk and moisture, with tartness that balances the sweetness.
Beef suet
Adds richness and fat, giving the mincemeat a moist, smooth texture.
Coffee sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps preserve it.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the mixture and carries aroma.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the mixture.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and a chewy texture.

The step that matters

Chop each ingredient separately into very fine pieces. Uniform, very fine pieces let the flavours blend evenly and keep the texture consistent, so no large chunk of fruit or suet dominates each bite.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, beef, coffee, sugar, raisin, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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