Why it works: Meat and brandy work together. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 328 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. 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.
Stir the mince-meat from the bottom of the pan before removing it.
Mix in the brandy.
Line patty pans with puff-paste, making the edges ¼ inch thick and the bottom half that thickness.
Fill the pans with mince-meat and cover with puff-paste ¼ inch thick.
Trim the edges at a slant and make a hole in the center of each pie.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until golden.
Remove from tins and serve hot.
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.
-
Meat + brandytop 26% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together328 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
More mince pies recipes
You might also like
Brandy Peaches68 recipes
Brandy Cream21 recipes
Brandy Pudding13 recipes
White Cake431 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.