Mincemeat
3 lbs. lean beef boiled and chopped fine. 2 lbs. suet chopped fine (add tablespoon salt). 4 lbs. seeded raisins. 2 lbs. currants. 1 lb. citron. 1 pk. winesap apples peeled and chopped fine. 3 lbs. light brown sugar. 1 cup molasses. 1 cup vinegar. Rind of 1 orange. Juice of 2 lemons. 1 pint of good whisky. Cinnamon and cloves to taste.
This is a list of proportions rather than a method: Mrs. Wilson assumes her reader knows what to do with a crock of mincemeat. A few conversions and one decision about storage will get it into a pie.
- A peck of applesA peck is a dry quarter-bushel, roughly 10 to 12 lb of apples, which after peeling and coring yields something like 8 lb chopped. Winesaps are still grown but hard to find; any firm, tart, aromatic keeper works — Northern Spy, Braeburn, Jonagold.
- YieldThe whole batch runs to well over 20 lb of mincemeat, enough for something like a dozen 9-inch pies. Halving or quartering the recipe is sensible unless you are supplying a household at Christmas.
- SuetBeef suet is the hard fat from around the kidneys, not trimmings. Ask a butcher; it is often free. It should be chopped or grated cold, and the tablespoon of salt she calls for goes in with it. Packaged shredded suet, sold for British puddings, substitutes directly.
- Currants and citronCurrants here are dried Zante currants, not fresh red or black currants. Citron is candied citron peel, sold in tubs around the holidays; candied orange and lemon peel together stand in for it well enough.
- The missing instructionNo cooking step is given. Mincemeat of this style is often combined, then simmered very gently until the apples soften and the liquid thickens, with the whisky stirred in only after the pot has cooled, since much of the alcohol boils off if it goes in hot.
- Spicing"To taste" for a batch this size means considerably more than it sounds: on the order of a tablespoon or two of cinnamon and a teaspoon or two of cloves for the full quantity. Season the mixture warm, where the spices read accurately, rather than cold.
- StoragePeriod cooks kept mincemeat in stone crocks in an unheated cellar and trusted the sugar, vinegar and whisky. Treat a cooked meat mixture as perishable: refrigerate it in covered jars for a few weeks, or freeze it in pie-sized portions. Do not can it at home without following a current tested process.
- Baking the pieFilled double-crust pies of this kind go into a hot oven, 425F, for the first 15 minutes to set the pastry, then 350F for another 25 to 30 minutes until the top is browned and the filling bubbles at the vents.
Mincemeat began as a way to use meat that had to be dealt with before winter, sweetened and spiced and packed in fat so that it would keep — the meat is the older part of the recipe and the sugar the newer, and many later American versions dropped the beef altogether. This one still carries three pounds of it.