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Dessert

Minced Meat

A mixture of roasted meat, suet, currants, apples, bread, spices, sugar, citrus, brandy, wine, citron, and candied peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Minced Meat

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 ↓

Minced Meat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the roasted meat, shredded suet, currants, chopped apples, and grated bread in a large bowl.

  2. Add nutmeg, cloves, pepper, coarse sea salt, sugar, grated lemon peel, grated orange peel, and lemon juice.

  3. Pour in the brandy and white wine, then add the citron and candied lemon peel.

  4. Mix all ingredients well, adding them separately.

  5. Let the mixture sit for one to two days before using.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Roasted meat
Provides the savory, meaty body that the filling is built around.
Suet
Adds richness and moisture, and coats the other ingredients so the mixture stays tender.
Currants
Contribute sweetness, chewy texture and moisture to the filling.
Apples
Add moisture, tartness and body that balances the sugar and spices.
Grated bread
Absorbs liquid and helps bind the mixture together.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps preserve it during resting.

The step that matters

Let the mixture sit for one to two days. Resting lets the spices, citrus, brandy and wine blend into the fruit and meat and lets the bread soften and absorb liquid, so the flavors become more rounded and the texture more even.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, apple, bread, nutmeg, clove, pepper, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, apple, bread, nutmeg, clove, pepper, sugar. 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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