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Mince Meat

A spiced mixture of beef, suet, apples, dried fruit, sugar, and spirits, used as a pie filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat and suet

  1. Boil the lean beef and chop it finely.

  2. Melt the beef suet and mix it with the chopped beef.

Combine and season

  1. Add the chopped apples, cooking raisins, Sultana raisins, currants, and citron peel.

  2. Stir in the cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, and salt.

  3. Mix in the brown sugar, brown sherry, and brandy thoroughly.

Store

  1. Store in a cool place until ready to use.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the mincemeat moist and rich in texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture while it matures.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that balance the sweetness.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the mixture and adds aroma.
Brown sherry
Adds liquid and a deep, rich flavour to the mixture.
Lean beef
Provides the meaty base that gives the mincemeat its body.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, apple, raisin, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, allspice):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, raisin, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, allspice. 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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