Making mincemeat

• By Frances Bissell

Frances Bissell explains how to make your own mincemeat for the ubiquitous Christmas mince pie.

Mincemeat may be a misnomer now, but it wasn’t always so. These highly spiced Christmas pies actually did contain minced meat mixed with dried fruit, and it was only in the last century that the meat was gradually phased out, leaving suet as the only ‘animal’ content. Suet, a traditional component of mincemeat, is dehydrated saturated fat from raw beef or mutton. This is mixed into dried raisins, currants, cherries and apricots, candied peel, spices like nutmeg and cinnamon, nuts and a very generous amount of brandy or rum.

The origin of the mince pie lies in the medieval chewette (Taste note: the Middle English Dictionary lists the word as cheuet, although the pronunciation and definition is similar), a pastry containing liver or chopped meat, mixed with boiled eggs, ginger and dried fruit. It was either fried or baked. By the 16th century, the ‘mince’ or ‘shred’ pie was already a Christmas speciality (luxurious foods were reserved for religious celebrations).

Small, traditional mince pies, dusted with icing sugar, are a welcome offering to callers, with a glass of amontillado or oloroso sherry or Madeira. A large mince tart with a lattice top looks good on a holiday buffet table, and a hot mincemeat sauce is marvellous with good vanilla ice cream. You can also use it in soufflés and batter puddings.

À la carte mincemeat

This is a basic recipe for 2.5kg which you can ‘dress up’ by adding your own choice of ingredients. Without the addition of the traditional chopped apple, it is in little danger of fermenting.

You will need:

250g of dried apricots or pitted prunes, 250g of raisins, 250g of pitted dates, 250g of sultanas, 250g of currants, 250g of shredded beef or vegetarian suet OR eight tablespoonfuls of ground nut oil OR 250g of grated coconut cream, 125g of Demerara sugar, 150ml of rum or brandy, 125g of mixed peel (chopped), the grated zest & juice of a lemon and an orange, one teaspoonful of ground mixed spice, half a teaspoonful of ground cardamom, 150ml of oloroso or cream sherry, or port.

You can add any of the following to liven up your mincemeat mixture, and to ring the changes:

An apple (peeled, cored and grated), mixed with 75g of flaked almonds.

A large pear (peeled, cored and grated), mixed with 15g of fresh, grated ginger, or stem ginger.

Half a medium-sized pineapple (peeled, cored and chopped), mixed with a handful of pine-nuts, finely chopped Brazil nuts or desiccated coconut.

100g of dried mango (chopped), mixed with a handful of cashew nuts (chopped).

100g of fresh-frozen cranberries, cooked in a little orange juice until they pop, mixed with tangerine segments (chopped), grated tangerine zest or kumquat (chopped).

Chop or mince the dried fruit. Mix all the ingredients together and leave them in a covered bowl for three days. Spoon the mixture into sterilised jars and seal them. To fill 15 small pies, you will need 250g of mincemeat.