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Dessert

Superlative Mincemeat

A fruit and spice mixture used as filling for pies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Superlative Mincemeat

Oven, in the book's wordsA fierce oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a fierce oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mincemeat

  1. Boil the lemons until tender, then chop them small, removing all the seeds.

  2. Combine the chopped lemons with the other prepared ingredients in a large bowl. Mix well and add 3 to 4 cups of brandy.

Make the mince pies

  1. For mince pies, butter some tin pattypans and line them with thin puff pastry.

  2. Fill the pastry with the mincemeat and moisten the edges of the covers. Close the pies carefully and trim off any excess pastry.

  3. Make a small hole in the center of each pie crust with a fork or knife.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes, covering with paper if they brown too quickly.

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. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons
Boiled until tender, they soften and add moist, tart flavour to the mincemeat.
Suet
Its fat melts during baking, adding richness and a moist texture to the filling.
Brandy
Acts as a preserving liquid and adds aroma to the mincemeat.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the lemons and fruit.

The step that matters

Covering the pies if they brown too quickly. Sugar and fat in the pastry brown fast in the oven, so paper covering protects the crust from burning before the filling is heated through.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, raisin, orange, sugar, brandy. 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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