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Mock Mince Pie

A pie made with green tomatoes, raisins, spices, and a sweetened butter mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Mock Mince Pie

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 ↓

Mock Mince Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine hot water, sugar, vinegar, and melted butter.

  2. Add chopped raisins, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg. Mix well until combined.

Assemble and bake

  1. Prepare a pie crust and fill it with the mixture.

  2. Bake according to your pie crust instructions.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 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

Green tomatoes
Provide the main bulk and tart body of the pie filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the tomatoes.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor of the filling.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness to the filling.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, butter, clove, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, butter, clove, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg. 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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