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Mince Meat

A savory mixture of chopped meat, suet, apples, raisins, citron, spices, broth, molasses, sugar, preserves, and vinegar, cooked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the meat until tender, then let it cool and chop it finely.

Mix and season

  1. Mix the chopped meat with the suet, salt, apples, raisins, and citron.

  2. Season the mixture with cinnamon, mace, cloves, and nutmeg.

  3. Add enough beef broth to make the mixture soft.

Cook and store

  1. Heat the broth with molasses, brown sugar, strawberry preserves, and vinegar.

  2. Cook the mixture slowly for about five hours.

  3. Transfer to a stone jar and cover tightly.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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, giving it body and a savoury base.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the mixture moist and rich as it cooks.
Apples
Contribute moisture and tartness that balance the sweetness.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth through caramelised flavour during slow cooking.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and a rich, slightly bitter depth of flavour.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture slowly for about five hours. Long, low cooking lets the sugars, fats and spices blend and mellow while the moisture reduces gradually. Rushing with high heat can scorch the sugars at the bottom of the pot and leave the meat dry or tough.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, apple, raisin, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, beef. 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 →

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