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Dessert

Mince-meat

A mixture of boiled tongue, suet, fruit, spices, and brandy used as pie filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Mince-meat

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Mince-meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the fresh tongue in salt water until tender.

  2. Weigh and chop the tongue finely.

Mix and pack

  1. For every pound of tongue, add 1 pound of suet, raisins, currants, chopped apples, and sugar.

  2. Add a little cinnamon, cloves, and allspice.

  3. Pack tightly in an earthen jar and add 1 pint of brandy.

  4. When making pies, add 3 pints of cider and the juice and chopped rind of 2 lemons for every 5 pounds of meat.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 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. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Tongue
Provides the meaty bulk that the other ingredients are mixed around.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the mixture moist and rich as it matures.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture.
Brandy
Acts as a preservative and adds aroma to the mixture.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Pack tightly in an earthen jar. Packing tightly removes air pockets, which limits spoilage by oxygen-loving microbes and helps the mixture keep its texture while it stands with the brandy.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

More mince meat recipes

Pie Filling 11Pie 10with Apples 9Preserved 8Apple 7Mock 7 See all 183 →

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