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Mince Pie

A savory pie filled with beef, sugar, suet, apples, raisins, currants, citron, lemon peel, orange peel, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Prepare the beef by cooking it until tender, then finely chop or grind it.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the beef, sugar, suet, chopped apples, raisins, currants, citron, lemon peel, orange peel, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves. Mix all ingredients thoroughly until well combined.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill a pie crust with the mixture and cover with another crust.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until the crust is golden brown.

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

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

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

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

  4. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  5. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the meaty body and bulk of the filling once cooked and finely chopped.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the rich, spiced filling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it bakes.
Chopped apples
Contribute moisture and tartness that brighten the dense, spiced filling.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the filling.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aromatic spice that defines the flavor of the filling.

The step that matters

Thoroughly mixing the filling. Even distribution of the chopped meat, fat, fruit and spices ensures every bite tastes consistent and the filling bakes evenly within the crust.

Swap the currant

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

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

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