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Mince Meat (Boil two pounds of good beef)
Boil two pounds of good beef until tender, let it get cold, then chop fine; mince a pound of pure beef suet until it is almost a powder, pare and chop fine five pounds of tart apples, one pound of Sultana raisins whole, three pounds of raisins seeded and chopped, one pound of citron, one pound of currants (well washed), one tablespoonful of nutmeg, two tablespoonfuls of cinnamon, one-half teaspoonful of cloves, one small spoonful of salt, one-half teaspoonful of pepper, one quart of cider, and two and one-half pounds of sugar.
A full-sized nineteenth-century mincemeat, built to fill a stone crock and supply a household through the winter. The quantities are enormous by modern standards and the recipe stops before telling you what to do with the mixture, so the notes below fill in the gaps.
- YieldThe ingredients total something over sixteen pounds before cooking, enough for a large batch of nine-inch pies. Halving or quartering it costs nothing in quality.
- The beefA tough, gelatinous cut is what is wanted here: chuck, shin or brisket, simmered until it shreds. Cooling it fully before chopping is not optional, as warm beef smears rather than cuts.
- SuetBeef suet is the hard kidney fat, and it is no longer a supermarket item; ask a butcher, and freeze it before chopping or grating so it stays powdery. Some cooks substitute an equal weight of cold unsalted butter, which changes the texture but keeps the richness.
- CiderThis means sweet apple cider, not vinegar. Hard cider would also have been used, and gives a drier, more fermented note.
- CitronCandied citron peel, sold in blocks at holiday time. Candied orange or lemon peel is a fair stand-in; the pale green supermarket "fruitcake mix" is not.
- RaisinsSultanas are golden raisins, left whole for texture. The three pounds of "seeded and chopped" raisins were most likely muscatels, sold with their seeds still in; ordinary dark raisins, given a rough chop, do the same job.
- Cook it before storingThe list ends without a method. Combine everything in a heavy preserving pan and simmer gently, uncovered, for about an hour, stirring often so the sugar does not catch. The apples should break down and the liquid reduce to a thick, glossy mass.
- StorageThe old practice was a crock in a cold cellar. Refrigerate it in covered jars and use within a few weeks, or freeze it; do not attempt to can meat mincemeat by any of the open-kettle methods these books assume.
- BakingFor a double-crust pie, fill generously, vent the top, and bake at 425F for 15 minutes, then reduce to 350F for another 30 to 35 minutes until the crust is browned and the filling bubbles at the vents.
Mincemeat began as a genuine meat dish: medieval and early modern English cooks preserved chopped beef, mutton or tongue with dried fruit, sugar and spice, the sweetness and the fat working together to keep the meat sound through the winter. By the time this book appeared the meat had already begun retreating, and twentieth-century mincemeats increasingly dropped it altogether in favour of apple, suet and fruit alone. That this version still leads with two pounds of boiled beef places it in the older tradition, and the ratio tells the story of the transition well enough on its own: two pounds of beef against five of apples, five of raisins and currants, and two and a half of sugar. The heavy hand with citron, nutmeg and cinnamon is a holdover from the era when imported spices marked a dish as festive, which is often said to be why mincemeat clung to Christmas long after it stopped being a way of keeping beef.