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Dessert

Mince Meat

A mixture of minced meat, dried fruit, nuts, spices, sugar, and cider, cooked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Brazil nut and walnut share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 66 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the meat

  1. Cook the meat in enough water to cover it until tender.

  2. Let the meat cool in the water.

  3. Chop the meat finely.

Combine

  1. Mix all the dry ingredients together.

  2. Add all the liquid ingredients to the dry mixture and combine 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. Brazil nut + walnuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together66 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  4. Raisin + brazil nuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together22 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Provides the bulk and savory body of the filling as it is cooked and chopped.
Suet
Adds fat that gives the mincemeat richness and a moist, rounded mouthfeel.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy moisture to the filling.
Apples
Contribute moisture and a fruity tartness that balances the sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the filling a deep, caramel-like flavor.
Boiled cider
Concentrates apple flavor and adds acidity and sweetness to the filling.

The step that matters

Let the meat cool in the water before chopping. Cooling lets the cooked meat firm up so it can be chopped finely and evenly rather than turning mushy or stringy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, raisin, apple, brazil nut, walnut, lemon, orange):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Cranberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, raisin, apple, brazil nut, walnut, lemon, orange. 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 mincemeat recipes

Mock Pie 26Pie 21Lemon 15Fritters 14Green Tomato 13Pies 13 See all 120 →

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