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Mince Pies Without Meat
Two pounds of beef suet, three pounds raisins, three pounds currants, one-half pound citron, two quarts chopped apples, one ounce each of cloves, mace, allspice and cinnamon, a cup of brandy or other spirits, a quart of cider or fruit juices, sugar to taste, a little salt; put the suet through the meat-chopper, mix all ingredients, and simmer until thoroughly cooked.
— Mrs. Chas. E. Nichols
This is a mincemeat filling, not a pie — the recipe stops at the cooked mixture and assumes you know what to do with a crust. The batch is large by modern standards and keeps best frozen.
- YieldSomething on the order of eight quarts of finished mincemeat, enough for roughly eight to a dozen nine-inch pies. Halving or quartering the quantities works without adjustment.
- SuetBeef suet is the hard fat from around the kidneys; a butcher will supply it, though it is often sold already ground. It gives the traditional texture, but an equal weight of cold unsalted butter or vegetable shortening, grated in, is a common substitution and behaves similarly in the pie.
- The spice is not a typo, but consider it a maximumAn ounce each of cloves, mace, allspice and cinnamon is about four tablespoons apiece — assertive even across ten quarts. Cloves and mace in particular dominate quickly; start with half and taste after simmering.
- CurrantsThese are dried Zante currants, small tart grapes, not fresh red or black currants. If unavailable, use more raisins, but the filling loses some sharpness.
- CitronCandied citron peel, sold in blocks or diced around the winter holidays. Candied orange or lemon peel substitutes acceptably.
- "Sugar to taste"With this much fruit and cider the mixture is already sweet. Two to three cups of brown sugar for the full batch is a reasonable starting point, added part way through the simmer so you can judge it.
- Simmering"Until thoroughly cooked" means until the apples have broken down and the liquid is thick and syrupy rather than watery — about 1½ to 2 hours over low heat, stirred often. Suet scorches on the bottom of a thin pan; use a heavy pot.
- Keeping itThe original assumes a cold cellar and a stone crock, with the brandy and cider doing preservative work. Refrigerate for a few weeks or freeze in quart containers instead; this is not a mixture to shelf-can without a tested process.
- BakingFill a double-crust pie generously, vent the top, and bake at 425F for 15 minutes, then 350F for 30 to 40 minutes until the crust colors. The filling is already cooked, so you are only setting the pastry.
Mincemeat began as a way of preserving meat with sugar, spice, dried fruit and spirits, and well into the nineteenth century American mince pies really did contain chopped beef or venison alongside the apples. This is a meatless version — though the suet stayed, since it carries the spice and gives the filling its richness. The title itself is the interesting part: "Without Meat" had to be announced, because a reader would otherwise have expected beef in the crock. Recipes like this one, signed with a contributor's married name, were the standard form of the community cookbook — a neighbor's working proportions written down for people who already knew how to roll a crust.