Miss Leslie's Complete Cookery / Directions for Cookery, in Its Various Branches

by Eliza Leslie

VERY PLAIN MINCE-MEAT.—

Take a piece of fresh beef, consisting of about two pounds of lean, and one pound of fat. Boil it, and when it is quite cold, chop it fine. Or you may substitute cold roast beef. Pare and core some fine juicy apples, cut them in pieces, weigh three pounds, and chop them. Stone four pounds of raisins, and chop them also. Add a large table-spoonful of powdered cloves, and the same quantity of powdered cinnamon. Also a pound of brown sugar. Mix all thoroughly, moistening it with a quart of bottled or sweet cider. You may add the grated peel and the juice of an orange.

Bake it in good common paste.

This mince-meat will do very well for children or for family use, but is too plain to be set before a guest. Neither will it keep so long as that which is richer and more highly seasoned. It is best to make no more of it at once than you have immediate occasion for.