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Mince Pie Meat

A spiced meat mixture for mince pies made from beef tongue, round, suet, raisins, currants, citron, sugar, molasses, broth, brandy, wine, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Mince Pie Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the beef tongue and beef round until tender.

  2. Skin the tongue and chop it finely with the beef.

Make the filling

  1. Add chopped suet, raisins, currants, and citron to the meat.

  2. Mix in sugar, molasses, meat broth, brandy, and white wine.

  3. Stir in salt, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmegs, and mace.

  4. Let the mixture stand overnight.

Store or bake

  1. For baking, combine half the mixture with an equal amount of stewed and sweetened apples.

  2. Store the remaining mixture in a jar, cover with brandy-soaked paper, and seal tightly.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Brandy + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together620 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tongue
Provides the main cooked meat that gives the filling its body and savoury depth.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it stands.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps preserve it along with the brandy.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness throughout the filling.
Molasses
Adds dark colour, depth of flavour and extra sweetness.
Brandy
Adds aroma and helps preserve the mixture during storage.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand overnight. Resting lets the spices, sugar, alcohol and meat juices soak into the chopped meat and fruit, so the flavours blend and the filling becomes more cohesive.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, raisin, sugar, molasses, meat, brandy, white wine):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Applefits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, raisin, sugar, molasses, meat, brandy, white wine. 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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