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Another Mince Meat Recipe

A preserved fruit and suet mixture flavored with spices, citrus peel, and fortified with brandy and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

Another Mince Meat Recipe

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the suet, apples, raisins, brown sugar, currants, lemon juice and zest, citron peel, candied lemon peel, candied orange peel, grated nutmeg, salt, chopped almonds, and mixed spice.

  2. Once well combined, pack the mixture into jars 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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the mixture moist and carries the flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps preserve the mixture.
Apples
Adds moisture and tartness, balancing the sweetness of the sugar and dried fruit.
Currants
Adds concentrated fruit sweetness and chewy texture.
Lemons
Adds acidity and aroma from the juice and zest.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the mixture and contributes aroma.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, raisin, sugar, lemon, orange, nutmeg, almond. 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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