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Mince-Meat No. 2
1 pound of raisins 1 pound of sultanas 1 pound of apples (after they are cored) 8 ounces of pine kernels 8 ounces of chestnuts 12 ounces of mixed peel 8 ounces of brown sugar 1 teaspoon of mixed spice 1 nutmeg 2 lemons Wineglass each of sherry and brandy Stone and chop the raisins; pick over and clean the sultanas; peel and core the applies; grind the nuts very finely twice through a good nut-mill; chop the peel very fine; boil the lemons for two hours and chop into small pieces, taking out all seeds; add all together, and mix well, putting the spice and wine in last. Cover tightly and keep about a fort-night before using. Almonds may be used in place of pine kernels.
A suetless, meatless mincemeat built on dried fruit, nuts and whole boiled lemons. Most of the work is chopping; the only real decisions concern the vaguer measures and how long the finished mixture will actually keep.
- The keeping time is the thing to watchWith only 8 oz of sugar to some four pounds of fruit and nuts, plus fresh apple and chestnut, this is a far wetter and less preserved mixture than a sugar-and-suet mincemeat. Keep it covered in the refrigerator for its fortnight of ripening, not in a larder, and use it within a few weeks.
- WineglassIn period British cookbooks a wineglass is about 2 fl oz (a quarter cup), so roughly 1/4 cup each of sherry and brandy. Some writers stretch it to 4 fl oz; the smaller reading suits the quantity of fruit here.
- Mixed spiceThe British blend: cinnamon, coriander, allspice, clove, ginger and a little nutmeg. Pumpkin pie spice is the closest supermarket substitute. Since a whole nutmeg is called for separately, grate that fresh — one nutmeg yields about 2 to 3 teaspoons.
- Mixed peelCandied citrus peel, usually orange and lemon, sold in tubs at Christmas. Buy whole candied peel and chop it yourself if you can; the pre-diced kind is drier and tastes largely of sugar.
- Sultanas and raisinsSultanas are golden raisins. "Stone the raisins" dates from when raisins arrived with seeds in; modern seedless raisins need only chopping.
- The boiled lemonsTwo whole lemons are simmered until the peel is completely soft, then chopped rind, flesh and all, with the pips picked out. This is what gives the mixture its bitter-marmalade edge, and it cannot be replaced by juice and zest.
- ChestnutsThe recipe does not say whether the chestnuts are raw or cooked; cooked and peeled chestnuts, vacuum-packed or jarred, work well here. Grinding is safer done in short pulses in a food processor than in one long run, which turns pine kernels to paste.
- YieldSomething over 5 1/2 lb by the weight of the ingredients, enough for several dozen small mince pies or a number of large tarts.
Mincemeat began as literal minced meat: medieval and early modern versions packed shredded beef or mutton, suet, dried fruit and spice into a coffin of pastry, the sugar and spice doing preservative work as much as flavouring. Over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the meat receded and the fruit advanced, though plenty of nineteenth-century recipes still carried beef or tongue, and the suet often survived as a relic of the original. This recipe, being meatless, has to remove that last trace too — hence the pine kernels and chestnuts here, which supply the fat and body that suet once did. The pairing of ground nuts with dried fruit was a standard vegetarian strategy of the period, and the same books used nut mills and nut butters throughout.