Makes enough filling for 2 pies
1 pound chuck meat, cut into small cubes
1 cup cider
1⅔ cups New Orleans—style molasses
8 apples, cored, peeled, and cut into small cubes
6 ounces beef suet
2 cups currants
3 cups seedless raisins
1 cup citron, diced fine
2½ cups sugar
1 cup sipping whiskey
½ teaspoon ground cloves
3 teaspoons cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground mace
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon salt
½ tablespoon freshly grated nutmeg
Eest from 1½ lemons
1. In a large Dutch oven, bring the meat and cider to a boil over medium-high heat. Skim off the froth and stir in the molasses. Stir in everything else, reduce the heat to low, and stir, and stir, and stir every 15 minutes for 3 to 5 hours, or until the mixture is very thick and jamlike.
2. Naturally you can pour in more liquor to suit your taste. Keep tasting, as this is a seat-of-your-pants recipe. When it suits you, it’s done.
3. Turn off the heat and let it cool down.
YOU CAN PUT it in a piecrust or serve it just like it is. It gets better with time, but do refrigerate it and warm it up when you next serve it, although you can eat it cold. This is Tucker’s favorite recipe.
Mother tells this tale of Juts’s mincemeat (Juts Brown was my mother’s mother). It was the Depression and everything was going to hell in a handbasket. Juts desperately needed a mortgage. She invited the banker to the house for Christmas Eve—the Browns always threw open their doors on Christmas Eve, which meant the folks in town were mixed up worse than a dog’s breakfast and loved every minute of it.
Her eggnog was as famous as her mincemeat. For every egg she added a glass of brandy and a glass of whiskey.
By the time the banker ate her mincemeat and knocked back a couple of glasses of eggnog, Juts had her mortgage.