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Mince Pie

A pie filled with minced meat, apples, raisins, spices, and cider, sweetened and salted to taste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mince Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the meat and apples finely.

Make the filling

  1. In a large bowl, combine the meat, apples, raisins, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmegs, and cider.

  2. Sweeten and salt the mixture to taste.

Bake

  1. Fill a pie crust 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.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives the pie its savoury, rich body.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that balance the sweetness and richness of the meat.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the filling.
Cider
Adds moisture and acidity, helping the filling stay juicy while baking.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, aromatic flavour that defines the spiced character of the pie.

The step that matters

Sweeten and salt the mixture to taste. Salt and sugar are added after the fruit and meat are combined, so the seasoning must be tasted and adjusted before filling. Salt heightens flavour, and sugar balances the acidity of the apples and cider, so under-seasoning leaves the filling flat.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, apple, cinnamon, clove, allspice, nutmeg, cider):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Quincefits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, apple, cinnamon, clove, allspice, nutmeg, 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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