Name: Brandt Minced Pies
Ingredients: 1 pound currants; 1 pound nonpareil apples, minced; 1 pound fresh beef suet, minced; 1 pound loaf sugar, pounded; peel of 2 lemons, grated; juice of 1 lemon; ¼ pound citron, minced; ¼ pound orange peel, minced; 1 quart brandy

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,634 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Brandt Minced Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Clean the currants.
Mince the apples and beef suet.
Pound the loaf sugar.
Grate the lemon peels and juice one lemon.
Mince the citron and orange peel.
Mix all ingredients well with the brandy.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together3,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,230 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,291 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together1,918 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the currant

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

Figbetter flavor fit
Apricotbetter flavor fit
Blackberrybetter flavor fit
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, beef, sugar, lemon, orange, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).