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Preserve

Mock Mince Meat

A mincemeat-style filling made from green tomatoes, sugar, suet, and raisins, spiced and canned in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Mock Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Chop the green tomatoes.

  2. Boil the tomatoes for 10 minutes.

  3. Drain the tomatoes.

Cook and can

  1. Combine the drained tomatoes, sugar, suet, raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice in a large pot.

  2. Cook the mixture slowly for 2 hours.

  3. Can the mixture in sterilized jars.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the mincemeat and its tart, fruity base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture during canning.
Suet
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a moist, tender texture.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture slowly for 2 hours. Slow cooking lets the tomatoes break down and the flavors meld while moisture evaporates. Sugar and reduced water help the mixture keep well once canned.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice. 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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