Mincemeat

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Very large mixing bowl
• •Box grater
• •Wooden spoon
• •Sterilised jam jars with tight-fitting lids (about 3 x 500ml)
• •Funnel (optional, but helpful)

Instructions

1. 1

   Combine the fruit

   Tip the raisins, sultanas, currants, mixed peel, and dried cranberries into a large mixing bowl. Use the biggest bowl you have. This recipe makes more mess than you think it will. Add the grated apple straight onto the fruit, juice and all. The apple needs to go in raw and be coated quickly so it doesn't brown.

   Grate the apple on the coarse side of the box grater, skin and core left behind. You want long shreds that will dissolve into the mixture as it sits, not a wet pulp.
2. 2

   Add suet, sugar, and citrus

   Scatter the suet over the fruit, then the muscovado sugar. Add the lemon and orange zest and their juice. The kitchen will start to smell of Christmas at this point, sticky, dark, citrus-bright. It's a good smell. Stir everything through with a wooden spoon, working from the bottom of the bowl upwards so nothing is left dry.

3. 3

   Spice and almonds

   Add the chopped almonds, the cinnamon, mixed spice, nutmeg, cloves, and a pinch of salt. Stir again, properly this time. You're looking for an even distribution of everything: no pockets of dry sugar, no clumps of suet. The mixture should look glossy and uniformly dark.

   Grate the nutmeg fresh. The pre-ground stuff loses its lift within weeks of opening, and nutmeg is one of the spices that actually announces itself in mincemeat.
4. 4

   Rest, then add brandy

   Cover the bowl with a clean cloth and leave it in a cool place for twelve hours, or overnight. The fruit will swell and the sugar will begin to dissolve into the juices. The next day, pour in the brandy and stir it through. You should be able to smell it from across the room. If you can't, add a little more.

5. 5

   Jar and store

   Spoon the mincemeat into clean, sterilised jars, pressing down firmly with the back of a spoon to remove any air pockets. Leave a small gap at the top of each jar. Seal, label with the date, and store somewhere cool and dark. A cupboard is fine. Wait at least two weeks before using. A month is better. The flavours need time to find each other.

   To sterilise jars: wash them in hot soapy water, rinse, and put them in a 140C oven for fifteen minutes. The lids go in a pan of simmering water for five. Both should be hot when the mincemeat goes in.

Chef Tips

• •Use the best dried fruit you can find. Plump, soft, recently dried. The cheap stuff has often been sitting on a shelf for too long and tastes of nothing but its own packaging. Mincemeat is mostly fruit, so the fruit has to carry it.
• •Vegetarian suet works perfectly well here, and nobody at the table will know the difference. If you can't find suet at all, very cold butter grated on the coarse side of a box grater is a workable substitute, though the texture will be slightly different.
• •Top up the jars with a little extra brandy every few weeks if you remember. A teaspoon, no more. It keeps the mincemeat lively and pushes the flavour a little deeper as Christmas approaches.
• •Mincemeat keeps for a year in a cool dark cupboard, sometimes longer. The high sugar and alcohol content do the preserving work. If you open a jar and it smells right, it is right. Trust your nose.

Advance Preparation

• •Mincemeat needs at least two weeks in the jar before it is ready to use. A month is better. Six weeks is better still. Make it in November and it will be at its best by Christmas.
• •Stored in sterilised jars in a cool, dark cupboard, mincemeat will keep for up to a year. Once a jar is opened, refrigerate and use within a month.
• •If the top of the mincemeat dries out a little in the jar, simply spoon over a little more brandy and stir through before using.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 42g)