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Dessert

Mince Meat

A preserved fruit and meat mixture flavored with brandy, sherry, spices, and apples, stored in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 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 ↓

Mince Meat

makes about 21 pints

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cook the lean beef and save the cooking water.

  2. Chop the cooked beef and suet finely.

Mix the filling

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped beef, suet, apples, brandy, sherry, vinegar, boiled cider, and pickled fruit vinegar.

  2. Add the grated rind and juice of the lemons and oranges, sliced citron, brown sugar or fruit syrup, raisins, and currants.

  3. Mix in the salt, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, mace, ginger, and white pepper.

  4. Use the reserved cooking water to wet the mixture as needed.

Store

  1. Store in jars; this recipe makes about 21 pints.

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

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

  3. Brandy + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Sherry + cidertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  5. Vinegar + cidertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the meaty body of the filling once cooked and chopped.
Suet
Adds richness and moistness, carrying flavour through the mixture.
Apples
Contribute moisture, tartness and bulk to the filling.
Brown sugar or fruit syrup
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of vinegar and citrus.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.
Currants
Add concentrated fruit sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, apple, brandy, sherry, vinegar, cider, orange):

  1. Grapefits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, brandy, sherry, vinegar, cider, orange. 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 fruit mince recipes

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