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Lemon Mincemeat
Peel two large fresh lemons very thinly, squeeze the juice from them, being careful to leave out the pips, and boil the rind until it is tender enough to beat to a paste. Add four sharp apples, pared, cored, and chopped small, half a pound of finely-shredded suet, a pound of currants, half a pound of good moist sugar, two ounces of candied lemon and citron, half a nutmeg, grated, a quarter of a tea-spoonful of powdered mace, a small pinch of salt, and the lemon-juice. Mix all thoroughly, then put the mincemeat into a jar with a closely-fitting lid, and let it remain for a week before it is used. A little brandy may be added if liked. Just before making the meat up into pies, add three or four macaroons crushed to powder. Time, an hour to prepare. Probable cost, 1s. 6d., exclusive of the brandy. Sufficient for two dozen small pies.
A meatless mincemeat built on boiled lemon rind rather than beef, and short-matured — a week rather than the months a spiced meat mincemeat would want. Most of the work is in the rind.
- The hinge: boil the rind properlyThe peel must be simmered until it is genuinely soft enough to crush to a paste, which usually means 30-45 minutes in plenty of water, not the ten minutes it takes to look cooked. Under-boiled rind stays as bitter, leathery threads that never soften in the pie.
- Peel thinly"Very thinly" means the coloured zest only. Any white pith carried through into the paste turns the mixture bitter, and no amount of sugar covers it.
- WeightsHalf a pound of suet is 8 oz / 225 g; a pound of currants 450 g; half a pound of moist sugar 225 g; two ounces of candied peel 55 g. Half a nutmeg grated is roughly a rounded teaspoon.
- Moist sugarVictorian "good moist sugar" is soft light brown sugar — damp, partly refined, not caster or granulated. Light muscovado is the closest thing on a modern shelf.
- SuetShredded beef suet from a butcher is what is meant; packet shredded suet works directly, and vegetable suet is a workable substitute if you want the mixture meat-free throughout.
- Currants and applesCurrants here are dried Zante currants, not fresh blackcurrants. "Sharp apples" means a cooking apple that collapses and has acidity — Bramley in Britain, Granny Smith elsewhere.
- MacaroonsThese are the almond biscuits of the period, close kin to the small dry ratafia, and nearer to amaretti today than to soft coconut macaroons or the French macaron. The recipe holds them back until just before filling, which would also keep them from dissolving into the fruit during storage.
- Keeping itWith no meat, modest sugar and no vinegar, this is a fresh mincemeat rather than a preserve. Keep the covered jar in the refrigerator for its week and use it within two or three weeks; the optional brandy helps, but does not make it shelf-stable.
- Yield and bakingEnough for two dozen small tarts. The recipe gives no baking directions; small mince pies in shortcrust are usually baked around 200C/400F for 15-20 minutes, until the pastry is coloured through underneath.
Mincemeat began as what its name says — minced meat, spiced and sweetened with dried fruit, a way of stretching and seasoning beef or mutton — and over the course of the nineteenth century the meat receded in many recipes, leaving suet as the last trace of the animal. Cassell's prints more than one mincemeat, this lemon version among them. It is at the light end of the range: 1s. 6d. for two dozen pies, and quick to mature at a week rather than being laid down in autumn for Christmas. The crushed macaroons stirred in at the last moment are a period touch, an almond note that turns up often in Victorian sweet cookery.