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Mince Meat

A minced beef mixture with apples, suet, dried fruit, sugar, molasses, spices, and cider, cooked and canned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and fig match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 238 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat and fruit

  1. Boil the beef until tender, then chop it finely.

  2. For each bowlful of chopped meat, add two chopped apples.

  3. Mix in the chopped suet, raisins, currants, figs, sugar, molasses, and spices.

Moisten and cook

  1. Moisten the mixture well with cider, adding boiled cider if you have it.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a large pan and cook for 30 minutes.

  3. Adjust spices and cider as needed during cooking.

Store

  1. This mixture can be canned like fruit and stored for months.

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. Apple + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together238 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Currant + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together276 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

Beef
Provides the savoury meat body that forms the bulk of the mincemeat.
Suet
Adds fat that gives a moist, rich texture as it melts during cooking.
Raisins
Contribute sweetness and chewy texture through their concentrated sugars.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture.
Apples
Add moisture, tartness and body to balance the rich meat and fat.
Cider
Moistens the mixture and adds acidity and fruity flavour.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, meat, apple, raisin, fig, sugar, molasses):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, apple, raisin, fig, sugar, molasses. 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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