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Dessert

A New Mincemeat

A preserved fruit and nut mixture made with raisins, apples, candied fruit, nuts, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A New Mincemeat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pass all ingredients through a mincing machine or finely chop them.

  2. Thoroughly mix all the ingredients together.

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. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Brazil nut + chestnuttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Nutmeg + chestnuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together180 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  5. Orange + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together727 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Valentia raisins
Adds chewy sweetness and moisture to the mincemeat.
Sultana raisins
Adds chewy sweetness and moisture to the mincemeat.
Juicy apples
Add moisture and tartness that balance the sugar and dried fruit.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps preserve the fruit.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, lemon, orange, nutmeg, allspice, brazil nut, chestnut):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, lemon, orange, nutmeg, allspice, brazil nut, chestnut. 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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