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Mince Meat

A spiced minced beef dish with apples, raisins, currants, molasses, and spices, simmered slowly for three hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 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

makes two gallons

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mincemeat

  1. Combine the chopped beef, sour apples, raisins, currants, molasses, vinegar, cider, spices, citron, brown sugar, jelly, mixed fruit juices, suet, lemon juice, and lemon rind in a large pot.

  2. Add butter and mix well.

  3. Boil very slowly for three hours in the liquid from the boiled meat.

Store

  1. This recipe makes two gallons and will keep until July.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Vinegar + cidertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Currant + cidertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together500 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the bulk and savoury meaty body of the mincemeat.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture as they soften during the long simmer.
Currants
Add concentrated fruit sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.
Suet
Adds richness and moisture, coating the other ingredients as it melts.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deep molasses-like flavour to the filling.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, sweet fruit and meat.

The step that matters

Boil very slowly for three hours. A slow, gentle simmer lets the meat, fruit and sugar blend and soften without scorching on the bottom of the pot. Boiling hard can burn the sugars and toughen the meat, so the pot needs steady, low heat and occasional stirring.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, apple, raisin, molasses, vinegar, cider, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, raisin, molasses, vinegar, cider, 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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