Mince Meat

First, prepare your spices in manner and proportions as follows: viz.,—to four ounces of cinnamon add two ounces of nutmegs, four ounces of cloves, two ounces of ground ginger, one ounce of coriander-seeds, the rind of twelve oranges and of twelve lemons rubbed on sugar, and scraped off. Pound and sift the spices, mix these with the orange and lemon sugars, and keep this well corked in dry bottles. The next thing is to procure four pounds of stoned raisins, four pounds of cleaned currants, two pounds of Eleme figs, two pounds of preserved ginger, four pounds of mixed candied-peel, six pounds of coarse chopped beef-suet, four pounds of tripe, and four pounds of boiled salt-beef chopped fine together, and six pounds of peeled apples, to be chopped with the raisins and currants; the candied-peel is to be shred small: mix all together on a clean table, adding six pounds of moist sugar and the spices; and when thoroughly mixed, put the mincemeat into stone jars; and two days after, pour into each its fair proportion of two bottles of brandy and two bottles of port. The addition of four ounces of pounded bitter-almonds would be an improvement.

Note.—To those who consider this a too large quantity of mincemeat for the economy of their family, I would suggest that, by taking one-half or a fourth part of the relative proportions of the foregoing ingredients, they may produce a more satisfactory result, without deterioration to the excellence of the mincemeat.