Skip to main content
Dessert

Mince Pies Another Way

A savory pie made with parboiled tongue, beef suet, apples, spices, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Pies Another Way

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slack oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Parboil the neat's tongue, peel it, and chop it finely.

  2. Combine the chopped tongue with the beef suet, pippins, and lemon peel.

  3. Season with spice, salt, sugar, currants, wine, brandy, lemon juice, citron, and peels. Mix all ingredients thoroughly and fill the pie crusts.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until golden.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  4. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Neat's tongue
Provides the meaty body and richness that gives the filling its substance.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it bakes.
Pippins (apples)
Add tartness and moisture that balance the sweetness of the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling taste rounded and mellow.
Currants
Contribute chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the filling.
Brandy
Adds aroma and warmth that deepen the flavour of the spiced filling.

The step that matters

Mix all ingredients thoroughly. Even distribution of the fat, fruit, sugar and spice keeps every pie consistently moist and flavourful, rather than having dry or overly rich pockets.

Flavor stand-ins for the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, apple, lemon, sugar, wine, brandy, orange):

  1. Grapebetter flavor fit
  2. Figbetter flavor fit
  3. Apricotbetter flavor fit
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, lemon, sugar, wine, brandy, orange. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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 mince pies recipes

Lemon 10Mock 4Royal 4 See all 116 →

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesApple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipes