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Dessert

Lemon Mincemeat

A preserved fruit mixture of lemon, apple, raisins, currants, marmalade, suet, sugar, candied peel, and brandy.

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 ↓

Lemon Mincemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Squeeze the juice from the lemons and boil them until tender enough to pulp.

  2. Remove the core and skins from the apples and chop the suet and peel finely.

Mix and store

  1. Mix all the ingredients together and place in a stone jar.

  2. Let it sit for 2 weeks before using.

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

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

  5. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 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
Provide acidity and bright citrus aroma, and their pulp adds body to the mixture.
Baked apples
Add moisture and soft body, bulking out the mincemeat.
Suet
Adds fat, giving richness and a moist, tender texture.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps preserve the mixture.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Brandy
Adds aroma and helps preserve the mincemeat.

Swap the currant

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

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

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