Home › The Waldorf Kitchen › Mince-meat
Mince-meat
This word evidently takes its original meaning from the French and signifies anything that is minced or chopped up fine. From the following recipes it will be seen that mince-meat may be prepared in a variety of ways, many cooks having a special recipe according to their own fancy and from which they make their mince pies. (1) Mix together one pound each of raisins, cleaned currants, apples, boiled pickled beef-tongue and flesh from calf's feet, all finely chopped; also one-half pound each of chopped beef suet and candied peel, one-half pound of sugar, one teaspoonful of mixed spices, moistening with three tumblerfuls of wine and brandy in equal proportions, together with the strained juice of two lemons. (2) Cut off about two pounds from the inside of a boiled sirloin of beef, remove the skin and add about five pounds of beef suet and mince fine. Then add eight good-sized apples peeled, cored and chopped, six pounds of cleaned currants, the grated crumb of a small loaf of bread, one and one-half pounds of sugar, one ounce of grated nutmeg, one-half ounce of cloves, the grated peel of a lemon and orange, moistening with the juice of six oranges and three lemons and two tumblerfuls each of brandy and sherry wine. Pack away in jars.
Two working formulas for the meat-based mincemeat that was still standard in hotel kitchens in the 1890s. Neither is cooked as a mixture; both are raw fillings meant to mature in a cold larder and then be baked in a pie.
- TumblerfulA tumbler is usually reckoned at somewhere around a cup, 8 fluid ounces, though the book does not define it. On that reading recipe (1) takes about a cup and a half each of wine and brandy; recipe (2) about two cups of each. Neither figure is precise in the original, so add the liquor gradually until the mixture is moist rather than swimming.
- Mixed spicesAn unspecified house blend, typically nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, mace and allspice. Recipe (2) at least gives proportions: nutmeg dominant, cloves at half that weight. One teaspoonful for the six and a half pounds or so of fruit and meat in recipe (1) is very restrained by modern palates.
- CurrantsDried Zante currants, not fresh red or black currants. Six pounds in recipe (2) is not a misprint; that formula is built on fruit, with the beef as a background note.
- Calf's feetThe gelatinous meat picked from boiled calf's feet, used for body and richness. It is a special-order item now. Extra cooked tongue or a well-cooked piece of beef shin is the nearest practical stand-in; powdered gelatin is not, since it contributes no flavor or texture here.
- The suet in recipe (2)Five pounds of suet to two pounds of beef is a very high proportion of fat, higher than later mincemeat recipes generally run, and will set very hard when cold. Cutting the suet to two pounds gives a filling that still bastes itself in the oven without leaving a greasy skim on the plate.
- Grated crumb of a small loafAbout four to five cups of fresh white breadcrumbs, crust removed. It is there to absorb the juices from the apples and citrus so the pie bottom does not weep.
- StorageIgnore "pack away in jars" as a room-temperature instruction. This is uncanned cooked meat and suet with no measured acid, no heat process and no sealing method, so treat it as a fresh perishable: refrigerate in a covered container and use within a few days, or freeze it. The alcohol and sugar retard spoilage but do not preserve it to any measurable standard.
- YieldRecipe (1) comes to something like seven or eight pounds once the spirits and juice are in, enough for several 9-inch pies. Recipe (2) runs to something over fifteen pounds even with the suet reduced, which is hotel scale; quarter it for a household.
The word is exactly what Oscar says it is, from the same root as the French mincier, to chop small, and the dish is a survival of the medieval English pie in which meat, dried fruit, suet and warm spices went into the same crust without anyone thinking the combination odd. Sugar was a preservative and spices were prestige goods, and the sweet-savory pie held its place on Christmas tables long after sweet and savory had parted company elsewhere on the menu. Oscar includes two full meat formulas, one leaning on pickled tongue and calf's foot. His prefatory note that "many cooks having a special recipe according to their own fancy" is the honest account of the dish, which has never had a fixed composition, only a fixed set of habits: chop fine, sweeten, spice, wet with spirits, let it stand.