Over the last couple of days I’ve been thinking about mincemeat – in a Christmassy mood! Although actually it’s a bit late to actually make mincemeat as it needs to mature, I’m sure if you did it would still taste lovely and fresh and delicious in your mincepies. I’ve been looking at recipes from Eliza Acton’s Modern Cookery, published in 1845, one a very traditional receipt using either ox-tongue or roasted sirloin, the other with an optional addition of meat to what we would think of as a ‘normal’ recipe of dried fruit and brandy.
Now here is something I’ve never heard of but which sounds absolutely yummy, I can just imagine them dredged in icing sugar with a sprig of holly… mincemeat fritters!
With half a pound of mincemeat, mix two ounces of fine breadcrumbs (or a tablespoonful of flour), two eggs well beaten, and the strained juice of half a small lemon. Mix these well, and drop the fritters with a dessertspooninto plenty of very pure lard or fresh butter; fry them for seven to eight minutes, drain them on a napkin or on white blotting paper, and send them very hot to the table: they should be quite small.
Don’t they sound quite scrumptious? here’s a shorthand recipe:
- ½ lb mincemeat
- 2 oz fine breadcrumbs or 1 tbsp flour
- 2 eggs well beaten
- juice of half a lemon
- mix all the ingredients very well
- drop dessertspoons into hot oil/lard/butter and deep fry for 7-8 minutes
- eat straight away – maybe with ice cream/cream/clotted cream
Lois Elsden 