Mince Pie

Ingredients

• 5 cups cooked beef; after grinding
• 2j4 " suet
• 7j4 " apples
• 3 " cider
• Yt cup vinegar
• I cup molasses
• 5 cups sugar
• y^ pound citron
• 2^ pounds raisins
• i^ '' small raisins (not to be put through grinder)
• salt to taste
• juice and rind of 2 lemons
• juice and rind of 2 oranges
• 1 tablespoon mace and nutmeg (or 2 nutmegs grated)
• 2 tablespoons each of cinnamon, cloves and allspice
• 2 tablespoons each of cinnamon, cloves and allspice
• 2 " lemon extract
• I teaspoon almond extract
• 3 cups liquor in which beef was cooked
• If you have wine or brandy put in a cupful after taking from the fire

Method

1. 1

   Affix the grinder firmly to the edge of the table.

2. 2

   Pass the ingredients through the grinder into a large kettle and let simmer on the stove for the best part of a morning, stirring frequently.

3. 3

   Store in stone crocks or glass jars in the dark.

4. 4

   When ready to make a pie, wet the meat with boiled cider and bake between crusts made from the ingredients given below.

5. 5

   Eat hot with soft dairy cheese and coffee.

Nutrition per serving

As published

This recipe was extracted from The Stag Cook Book: Written for Men by Men (1922) by Carroll Mac Sheridan, page 24. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

mince-pie was a thing to write sonnets about. It was the second best food in the world. For ten years after I went to New York I lived on the mem- ory of that pie and shuddered at the horrendous messes masquerading under the same name which were offered to me. Then I moved back to New England and* achieved a cook who, by the grace of God and the right bringing up could make a pie like it. For six years I knew happi- ness again. Then we lost Kate, the incomparable. My only hope was my wife and that was a feeble hope, in- [109] THE STAG COOK BOOK deed. She was born not in the pie belt, but in New York. She had never cooked. She was an Episcopalian. I ap- proached the next Thanksgiving breakfast with gloomy forebodings. But lo, a miracle. It was an orthodox mince-pie. It was Katie's mince-pie. It was grandmother's mince-pie — in short, it was mince-pie. Here is the way to make it. Made any other way it's not mince-pie. The Fillinff Affix the grinder firmly to the edge of the table. What the palette is to the artist so is the grinder to the creator of mince meat. Then pass the following ingredients through the grinder, and from thence into a large kettle and let the latter and its glorious contents simmer on the stove for the best part of a morning, stirring them fre- quently so that no portion shall be neglected and fail to come into close union with the soothing heat that mellows all into one f ragraqt whole. Take from the stove and store in stone crocks or glass jars in the dark, and keep tightly covered. When about to fashion a pie take out as much of the meat as you desire, wet it with boiled cider and with fresh cider, too, if possible, so that it is not stiff, and bake between the crusts whose ingredients are given below. Eat hot with soft dairy cheese and coffee. The meat should be thoroughly boiled the day before the mince meat is made, and the cider should be boiled down at home — ^not bought — ^until it is the consistency of [no] WRITTEN FOR MEN BY MEN molasses. Boil enough to last all winter and put in glass jars. Now, alas, that no liquors may be had, it is well to bottle fresh cider and put it away where it is cool, so that with luck it may still be fresh when in March you scrape the last jar for the last pie. Only use care when it is opened, or perchance it will be the ceiling rather than the pie which will be wet down. 5 cups cooked beef; after grinding 2j4 " suet 7j4 " apples 3 " cider Yt cup vinegar I cup molasses 5 cups sugar y^ pound citron 2^ pounds raisins i^ '' small raisins (not to be put through grinder) salt to taste juice and rind of 2 lemons juice and rind of 2 oranges 1 tablespoon mace and nutmeg (or 2 nutmegs grated) 2 tablespoons each of cinnamon, cloves and allspice 2 " lemon extract I teaspoon almond extract 3 cups liquor in which beef was cooked If you have wine or brandy put in a cupful after taking from the fire

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.