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E. Susan's Mince Pies

A sweet beef mince pie with apples, raisins, and spices, baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

E. Susan's Mince Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the beef for 6 hours.

  2. Remove the beef and save the stock.

  3. Free the meat from bone, fat, and gristle, then chop very fine.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped meat, sour apple, suet, sweet cider, raisins, lemon rind, and lemon juice.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil in a porcelain kettle.

  3. Sweeten with sugar and molasses to taste, using about 1 cup of sugar to ½ cup of molasses.

  4. Add ½ cup of cinnamon and ¼ cup of coarse sea salt, then boil slowly for 15 minutes without scorching.

  5. If the mixture is not moist enough, add more cider and boil for an additional 45 minutes.

Store and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into stone jars and cover tightly.

  2. Store the jars in a very cold place all winter.

  3. When filling the pies, add a few bits of butter and more raisins if needed, along with a pinch of nutmeg.

  4. Bake until the crust is cooked enough to slip onto a plate.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the bulk and meaty body of the filling after boiling and chopping.
Sour apple
Adds tartness that balances the sweetness of sugar and molasses.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling rich and moist as it cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tart apple and salty notes.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness and a dark, rich flavor to the filling.
Sweet cider
Supplies liquid that keeps the filling moist and adds fruity flavor.

The step that matters

Boiling slowly without scorching. The sugar, molasses and cider are thick and sweet, so they can burn on the bottom of the pot. Stirring and keeping the heat gentle prevents scorching and off flavors while the filling reduces and thickens.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

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

  1. Figbetter flavor fit
  2. Pearbetter flavor fit
  3. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, cider, raisin, sugar, molasses, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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