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Dessert

Granville Mince-meat

A sweet and savory mixture of boiled hogs' feet, dried fruit, apples, butter or suet, spices, and brandy, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Granville Mince-meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the hogs' feet until very tender, then chop them finely.

  2. Chop the raisins, currants, and apples.

Make the mincemeat

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped hogs' feet, raisins, currants, apples, butter or suet, salt, and spices.

  2. Mix in the French brandy and adjust the apple quantity if desired.

Bake

  1. Bake the mixture in rich puff pastry until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Hogs' feet
Provides body and gelatin, giving the cooked filling a rich, cohesive texture.
Raisins
Adds sweetness and chewy moisture to the filling.
Currants
Adds sweetness and small pockets of tart, chewy fruit.
Apples
Adds moisture and acidity, balancing the sweetness of the dried fruit.
Butter or suet
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
French brandy
Adds aroma and helps preserve the mixture.

The step that matters

Boil the hogs' feet until very tender. Collagen in the feet only breaks down into gelatin with long, thorough cooking. If they are undercooked, the chopped meat stays tough and the filling lacks its cohesive texture.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, currant, apple, butter, clove, cinnamon, brandy):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, currant, apple, butter, clove, cinnamon, brandy. 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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