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Mince Meat

A savory mixture of suet, apples, currants, raisins, mixed peel, sugar, spices, lemon, and optional lean boiled meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Skin, shred, and chop the suet with the apples.

  2. Mix the chopped suet and apples with the currants, raisins, mixed peel, sugar, spices, lemon juice, and salt, then stir well and keep tightly covered until needed.

  3. Optionally, add 4 oz of finely chopped lean boiled meat for a heartier mince meat.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Provides fat that keeps the mincemeat moist and rich in texture.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that balances the sugar and dried fruit.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, raisin, sugar, clove, cinnamon, lemon. 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 →

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