Name: Dry Mince Meat
Ingredients: 4 pounds beef; 2 pounds seedless raisins; 2 pounds currants; ¼ pound beef suet; 2 pounds brown sugar; about 2 quarts tart apples; ground cloves, to taste; allspice, to taste; cinnamon, to taste

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Dry Mince Meat

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

Boil the beef until tender.
Chop the beef finely or use a meat grinder.
Chop the suet finely.
Peel, core, and chop the apples finely.

Mix and store

Mix the beef, suet, apples, raisins, currants, sugar, and spices together until well blended.
Pack the mixture into a stone jar.
Take out the desired quantity.
Moisten with sweet elder, brandy, or a mixture of vinegar and water with a little sugar.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,598 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef: Provides the meaty body of the mincemeat once boiled and finely chopped.
Beef suet: Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich in texture.
Tart apples: Contribute acidity and moisture that balance the sweetness of the sugar.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture while it is stored.
Raisins: Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the filling.
Currants: Add tart, concentrated fruit flavour and a chewy texture.

Swap the currant

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

Figfits better
Orangefits better
Vanillafits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, raisin, sugar, apple, clove, allspice, cinnamon. 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.