Skip to main content

Temperance Mince Meat

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Temperance Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the beef and apples finely.

  2. Mix the beef, apples, suet, raisins, and sugar in a large bowl.

  3. Add the cider, grated lemon rind, and lemon juice.

  4. Incorporate the grated nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, and salt.

  5. Stir well to combine all ingredients thoroughly.

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

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

  2. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, raisin, sugar, cider, nutmeg, ginger. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

You might also like