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Unlike the bite-sized fruity snacks we enjoy today with a glass of sherry, the mince pies of the 16th and 17th centuries were huge, intended to feed a lot of people as part of the main course.

And, as the name suggests, the filling in mince pies was actually meat – veal, mutton, pork, turkey, capon (castrated cockerel) or beef, as in the recipe below, which is adapted from Robert May’s 1660 recipe book.

With the familiar festive flavours imparted by dried fruits and spices such as nutmeg, mace and cloves, the meaty versions are also quite delicious.

Ingredients

For the hot water crust pastry

  • 500g Plain flour
  • 1tsp Salt
  • 110g Fat (Unsalted butter, lard or beef suet)
  • 1 Egg yolk

For the filling

  • 200g Beef mince (or other meat), parboiled or roasted
  • 200g Beef suet
  • 100g Raisins
  • 100g Currants
  • 1tbsp Sugar
  • ½ tbsp Salt
  • 1tsp Ground nutmeg
  • ½ tsp each of Cloves, mace, ginger, ground black pepper
  • Finely sliced orange or lemon peel Optional

Method

  • STEP 1

    To make the pastry, sieve the flour into a bowl with the salt. Put the fat and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Make a well in the flour and pour in the fat and water mixture. Mix it together to form a dough.

  • STEP 2

    Finely chop meat and suet; add to a bowl along with raisins, currants, sugar, salt, spices and chopped peel, if using.

  • STEP 3

    Roll the pastry and lay it over a buttered and lined 20cm cake tin. Fill with meat mix.

  • STEP 4

    Cover with more rolled-out pastry and pinch together with the base to seal. Pierce a hole in the lid to allow steam to escape.

  • STEP 5

    Bake for 30 minutes at 200°C (fan)/gas mark 6, turn down to 150°C/gas mark 3 and bake for an hour until golden.

Eleanor Barnett is a food historian at Cardiff University and @Historyeats on Instagram. Her book, Leftovers: A History of Food Waste and Preservation (Head of Zeus), is out in 2024

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