Skip to main content
Main

Mince Meat

A preserved beef mince mixed with dried fruits, spices, wine, and brandy, stored in a jar.

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

Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cover the beef with boiling water and simmer gently until tender, then let it cool.

  2. Once the meat is cold, chop it fine and mix it with all the dry ingredients.

Prepare the fruit and suet

  1. Shred and chop the suet fine.

  2. Pare, core, and chop the apples.

  3. Stone the raisins and shred the citron.

Combine and store

  1. Add the juice and rinds of the lemons and oranges, mix well, and pack into a stone jar.

  2. Pour over the brandy and wine, cover closely, and store in a cool place.

Use

  1. To use, dip out the desired quantity and thin with cider or wine.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 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. Clove + appletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Sherry + appletop 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

Beef
Provides the meat body of the mincemeat once cooked, cooled, and chopped fine.
Beef suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture to the filling.
Raisins
Contribute sweetness and chewy body to the mixture.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that balances the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps preserve it during storage.
Brandy
Acts as a preservative and adds aroma to the stored mincemeat.

The step that matters

Storing the mixture cool and tightly covered. Alcohol and sugar help preserve the mincemeat, but only if it is sealed and kept cool. Warm or exposed mincemeat can ferment or spoil, so the closed stone jar and cool place matter.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, raisin, nutmeg, clove, sherry, lemon, apple. 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 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes