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Mince Pies

A savory pie filling of boiled meat, apples, suet, dried fruit, cider, and spices, stored in a porcelain kettle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Mince Pies

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Mince Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Combine the boiled and chopped meat, chopped apples, suet, currants, raisins, cider, sugar, salt, cinnamon, cloves, mace, and grated nutmeg in a large bowl.

  2. Add the strained liquor from boiling the meat and mix thoroughly.

Store

  1. Transfer the mixture to a porcelain kettle and scald it, covering tightly for winter use.

  2. If needed, add more raisins and cider or water to adjust the consistency.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped apples
Provide moisture, tartness and body to the filling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it firms.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the filling.
Boiled and chopped meat
Gives the filling its savoury, substantial body.

The step that matters

Scalding the filling. Scalding heats the mixture through to help reduce spoilage organisms before it is covered and stored. Tight covering keeps air out, which slows spoilage and drying during storage.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, apple, raisin, cider, sugar, cinnamon, clove. 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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