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General Directions for Making Mince Meat

A preserved meat mixture of beef tongue and heart with apples, suet, cider, spices, and dried fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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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 ↓

General Directions for Making Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the beef tongue and heart in minimal water until tender, salting halfway through.

  2. Prepare and finely chop the tongue and heart.

  3. Measure the chopped meat and use twice as many chopped apples and half as much chopped suet.

Make the mincemeat

  1. Add boiled cider, sweet pickle syrup, brandy, sherry, lemon and orange juice and zest, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, raisins, currants, and chopped citron.

  2. Cook the mixture in a preserving pan, stirring frequently.

  3. Add more syrup if too dry.

Store

  1. Transfer the hot mixture into fruit jars for storage.

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. Apple + peachtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Cider + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  5. Cider + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tongue and heart
Provide the meaty base that gives the mincemeat its body and savory depth.
Chopped apples
Add moisture and tartness, bulking out the filling with soft fruit.
Chopped suet
Adds richness and fat, giving the mixture a smooth, moist mouthfeel.
Brandy
Adds aroma and acts as a preservative, helping the mixture keep in storage.
Raisins and currants
Contribute sweetness, chewy texture, and concentrated fruit flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until thick and stir frequently. The mixture is cooked down in a wide pan while stirring, so it does not scorch on the bottom and the flavors blend evenly. Adding liquid only when too dry keeps the texture moist without making it runny.

Swap the peach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, apple, meat, cider, syrup, brandy, sherry):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Grapefits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, meat, cider, syrup, brandy, sherry. 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.

More mince meat recipes

Pie Filling 11Pie 10with Apples 9Preserved 8Apple 7Mock 7 See all 183 →

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