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Dessert

Mince Meat

A preserved mixture of beef, suet, apples, sugar, raisins, currants, citron, lemon, and spices for pies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,180 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Grind the raw beef and mix it with the chopped suet.

  2. Core and chop the sour apples, then add them to the meat mixture.

  3. Stir in the brown sugar, stoned raisins, currants, and chopped citron.

Season and store

  1. Add the salt, lemon juice, and lemon zest, then mix thoroughly and adjust spices to your taste.

  2. Store in a sealed container; it can be kept for up to a year.

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

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

  2. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw beef
Provides the meaty body and bulk of the filling.
Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture as it melts during cooking.
Sour apples
Contribute moisture and acidity that balance the sweetness of the sugar.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, and helps preserve the mixture.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Lemon juice and zest
Add acidity and bright aroma that lift the rich filling.

The step that matters

Mix thoroughly and adjust spices to your taste. Spices and seasoning must be evenly distributed through the raw meat, suet, and fruit so every portion tastes the same. Uneven mixing leaves some bites bland and others overly strong, and the flavour can only be judged once the mixture is fully combined.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, sugar, raisin, lemon. 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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