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Mince Pies

A savory pie filling made with boiled beef heart and tongue, apples, currants, raisins, suet, and sweetened with molasses, cider, sugar, spices, brandy, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Mince Pies

Why it works: Apple and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Mince Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the beef heart and tongue until tender.

  2. Chop the meat finely and season with pepper and salt.

Mix and preserve

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped meat, apples, currants, raisins, and suet.

  2. Add molasses, cider, sugar, spices, brandy, and citron to taste.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a jar and pour molasses over it to preserve. This will keep all winter.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Currant + cidertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together500 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  5. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef heart
Provides the main meaty body of the filling once boiled and chopped.
Beef tongue
Adds rich, tender meat to the filling after boiling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that balance the sweetness of the filling.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and depth, and helps preserve the mixture.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, apple, raisin, molasses, cider, sugar):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, apple, raisin, molasses, cider, sugar. 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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