Name: Mincemeat a LA Tickletooth
Ingredients: ½ pound stoned muscatel raisins; ½ pound sultanas; 1 pound currants; 6 ounces beef suet; ½ lemon rind

Why it works: Raisin and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,180 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

Mincemeat a LA Tickletooth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Wash, pick over, and dry the raisins, sultanas, and currants.
Chop the beef suet finely.
Grate the lemon rind.

Combine

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

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.

Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,742 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Raisin + beeftop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,273 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,270 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Beef + lemontop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,278 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Muscatel raisins: Provide concentrated sweetness and chewy body to the filling.
Sultanas: Add sweetness and soft, moist texture to the filling.
Currants: Add tart, concentrated fruitiness and chewy texture to the filling.
Beef suet: Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it matures.