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Mince Pies

A savory pastry filled with a mixture of dried fruit, spices, beef, suet, and alcohol.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Mince Pies

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mince Pies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mincemeat

  1. In a large bowl, mix raisins, currants, beef kidneys, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, sugar, salt, lemon juice, and lemon peel.

  2. Add raw beef fillet and suet to the mixture and combine thoroughly.

  3. Cover the mixture and let it sit in a cool place for two days.

  4. After two days, add brandy and sherry to the mixture and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Roll out the puff pastry and line small tins shaped like a manger.

  3. Fill the pastry-lined tins with the mincemeat mixture and cover with more puff pastry.

  4. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

  5. Serve warm with additional brandy poured over and set alight.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy body to the filling as they plump in the spirits.
Currants
Contribute concentrated sweetness and tartness, and moisture that softens the filling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich, and gives a soft, tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps preserve it during the long resting period.
Beef kidneys
Provide a savory, meaty body to the filling's texture.
Puff pastry
Its layered fat creates flaky, crisp structure when baked and browned.

The step that matters

Resting the mincemeat for two days. The cool rest lets the fruit, sugar, spices and meats meld and soften together, and the spirits are added only afterward so their alcohol flavour stays bright rather than cooked off.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, beef, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, sugar, lemon):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, beef, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, sugar, lemon. 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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