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Dessert

Mince Meat

A preserved fruit mixture of lemons, apples, raisins, currants, and spices, sweetened with brown sugar and jam, cooked with suet, brandy, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the whole lemons until tender, then use the juice and rinds.

  2. Combine the lemons, apples, raisins, currants, brown sugar, suet, citron, brandy, sherry, salt, nutmegs, ginger, mace, and mixed spices in a large pot.

  3. Add 1 to 2 cups of jam to the mixture and enough sherry to moisten well.

Cook and store

  1. Bring the mixture to a boil and heat thoroughly.

  2. Seal the mixture in fruit jars.

Serve

  1. When ready to use, add a few chopped apples and possibly more sugar.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  4. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Apple + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat and richness, giving the mixture a moist, rounded texture as it melts.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps preserve the mixture.
Lemons
Provide acidity and aromatic peel oils, brightening the dense fruit mixture.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and concentrated fruit flavour.
Tart apples
Add acidity and body, keeping the mixture from tasting cloying.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the mixture and carries spice aroma.

The step that matters

Heating the mixture to a boil. Bringing the mixture to a full boil and heating it thoroughly before sealing reduces the risk of spoilage in jars, since the sugar, alcohol and heat work together to preserve it.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, raisin, currant, sugar, brandy, sherry, nutmeg):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, raisin, currant, sugar, brandy, sherry, 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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