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Mince Meat

A spiced minced meat mixture with suet, currants, apples, raisins, candied peels, almonds, spices, sugar, lemon juice, wine, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Coriander and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,498 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Salt and spice the neat's tongue or bullock's heart and let it sit for three days.

  2. Remove all blood from the heart, sprinkle with salt, black pepper, allspice, and coriander seeds, then parboil.

  3. Remove the skin and chop the meat finely.

Make the mincemeat

  1. Combine the chopped meat with beef suet or currants and apples, raisins, candied peels, blanched almonds, grated lemon rind, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, salt, loaf sugar, lemon juice, and wine.

  2. If the mixture becomes dry, moisten with a little brandy or wine before making pies.

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. Coriander + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Allspice + coriandertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Neat's tongue or bullock's heart
Provides the main meat, which is salted, cooked and chopped into the filling.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it sits and bakes.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy body to the filling.
Blanched almonds
Add richness and a soft, crunchy texture to the filling.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps preserve it.
Madeira or sherry wine
Adds acidity and aroma and helps keep the mixture moist.

The step that matters

Parboiling the heart after seasoning. Parboiling firms the meat so it can be chopped finely and cooks it through before it is mixed with fat and fruit. Removing all blood first keeps the filling clean in flavour and texture.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, allspice, coriander, beef, lemon, orange, almond):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, coriander, beef, lemon, orange, almond. 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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