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Minced Meat

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Minced Meat

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Minced Meat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the suet in salted water (1 teaspoon salt per quart) until tender, then cool completely before chopping.

  2. Wash, pick, and dry the currants; prepare the spices and seed the raisins.

  3. Pare and core the apples, then chop them finely.

  4. Chop the suet very fine and combine it with the fruit, sugar, spices, lemon juice, grated lemon rind, wine, and brandy.

  5. Mix thoroughly and let it sit overnight before using.

  6. To store for several weeks, mix the chopped suet with currants, raisins, sugar, and spices, omitting apples, lemon, wine, and cider. Moisten with brandy and pack tightly in a stone jar.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, apple, raisin, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, mace. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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