Skip to main content
Preserve

Mince Meat

A preserved meat mixture of beef suet, apples, currants, raisins, spices, brandy, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped beef suet, minced apples, washed currants, chopped raisins, moist sugar, and cut citron, lemon peel, and orange peel.

  2. Add the grated nutmegs, ground salt, ginger, allspice, and cloves to the mixture.

  3. Stir in the lemon juice and grated peel, followed by the brandy and white wine. Mix all ingredients well and transfer to a jar.

Store

  1. Store the jar in a cool place.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds fat and richness, giving the mincemeat a moist, rich body.
Apples
Contribute moisture and tartness that balances the sweetness of the dried fruit.
Raisins
Provide sweetness and chewy texture through the mixture.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture while it stands.
Brandy
Adds aroma and acts as a preservative, helping the mixture keep.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, raisin, sugar, lemon, orange, nutmeg. 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.

More mince meat recipes

Pie Filling 11Pie 10with Apples 9Preserved 8Apple 7Mock 7 See all 183 →

You might also like

Green Corn PuddingGreen Corn Pudding64 recipesCornmeal mushCornmeal mush12 recipes