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Mince Pies

Mince pies are sweet pies filled with beef, suet, apples, raisins, currants, sugar, maple syrup, citron, candied lemon peel, and cider.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Mince Pies

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 ↓

Mince Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the shin of beef until very tender.

  2. Chop the beef suet very fine.

Make the filling

  1. In a large bowl, combine the beef, suet, salt, apples, raisins, currants, brown sugar, maple syrup, citron, and candied lemon peel.

  2. Add the cider (or Madeira wine) to the mixture and stir well.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill pie crusts with the mixture and bake until golden.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Currant + cidertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together500 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Apple + maple syruptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together272 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shin
Provides meat that becomes tender and rich when boiled, giving the filling its savoury body.
Beef suet
Adds fat that melts during baking, keeping the filling moist and rich.
Greening apples
Supply tartness and moisture that balance the sweetness of the sugar and dried fruit.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, caramel-like flavour to the filling.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, apple, raisin, currant, sugar, maple syrup, cider):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, raisin, currant, sugar, maple syrup, cider. 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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