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Dessert

Superlative Mincemeat

A preserved fruit mixture of lemons, apples, raisins, currants, candied citrus, suet, sugar, brandy, salt, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Superlative Mincemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the lemons until tender.

  2. Chop the lemons small, removing all the seeds.

  3. Prepare the golden pippins, raisins, currants, candied citron, orange rind, and suet.

Combine

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.

  2. Add 3 to 4 cups of brandy and mix thoroughly.

  3. Season with salt and spices to taste.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Golden pippins
Adds moisture and tartness that balances the sweetness of the sugar and fruit.
Suet
Adds fat that gives the mincemeat a rich, moist texture.
Brandy
Adds aroma and acts as a preservative that keeps the mixture stable.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the fruit.
Lemons
Add acidity and aromatic citrus flavour.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, raisin, orange, sugar, brandy. 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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