Hi and a huge welcome to Steve's kitchen
I'm pretty sure you've all had a mincepie
at christmas time but have you
ever made your own mincemeat? It isn't
difficult to do and i've got a video
from a year or so back I'm going to
share with you now on how to make a
delicious mincemeat. If you haven't had
this before you really should try. A
Merry Christmas to you and I hope you
enjoy this video for making mincemeat.
Ho ho and a big Christmas welcome to Steve's
kitchen I absolutely love Christmas time
because it's when I get to have
Christmas pudding
I've got one here..... that I made this on my
channel before, the video is up there, get
across you still have time to make a
wonderful homemade Christmas pudding but
the other thing I love are mincemeat
mince pies. Now why is it called
mincemeat? Traditionally mincemeat was
made with meat inside it and we still
actually put suet in there which is
actually a beef fat, you don't have to
use suet. I think because today I'm
making a luxury mincemeat i am going to
use to it but you can leave it out if
you prefer fully vegetarian. So come on
let's get on and make the most delicious
luxury mincemeat.
Now last year I made a budget mincemeat
which was very simple and just as
delicious to make but this time we're
making a luxury one. There's a lot more
ingredients going in so I'll put them up on
the screen now, pause now taken note of
everything you'll need and let's get on
and make our luxury mincemeat. Now in the
very simplest of terms what we're
looking for is about a kilo or two
pounds of dried fruits. I'm using these
dry tart cherries, about 200 grams thats
seven ounces, the same again of beautiful
cranberries, something that I think is
really essential are currants, beautiful
black sweet currants like that, again 200
grams 7 ounces. Sultanas and I've got
these soft figs these are just going to
need to be chopped up a little bit
before we use them. So in those fruits
alone we've got about a kilo, 2 pounds
and a little extra we're going to use
about a hundred grams, three-and-a-half
ounces of dried apricots which I'm just
going to chop up and I'm putting in some
crystallized ginger, again about 50 grams
that's a couple of ounces of
crystallized ginger and I'm just going
to chop that up as well. The last luxury
ingredient is about a hundred grams or
three-and-a-half ounces of slivered
almonds and this is going to make the
most delicious mincemeat with the right
spices we're going to be putting ginger,
a little bit of cloves, some fresh cinnamon,
whoops and some fresh nutmeg as well. Of
course mince meat would not be complete
without some alcohol in there, I'm using
brandy but if you don't want to use
alcohol you could replace this with a
little bit of fruit juice and we are
going to be using, as I said before my
suet, we're going to use about a hundred
twenty-five grams, four ounces of beef
suet and our fruit, two oranges, two lemons.
Zest and juice of these two fruits and
I've got three granny smith apples which
we're just going to slice up and they go
in as well. So to start with let's get
all these dried fruits into a mixing
bowl, those beautiful black currants are
going in there, I absolutely love currants at
Christmastime, the same amount of raisins
or sultanas. I'm just going to chop up my
figs and my apricots and my ginger
there and then come back and join me.
Rght come over here let me show you
what I've done, I've got my apples, the
Granny Smiths, they're just diced up into
little cubes and I leave the skin on by
the way, we're just going to pop those in
with the rest of the fruit, the figs diced
up nice and small, that wonderful
crystallized ginger, pop that in there as
well.
In go the apricots they're nice and
finely diced, our bowl is getting...... you
imagine how much sweet mincemeat we're
going to be making with this. Now over here that
is the beef suet, it is optional but I
think it gives a wonderful flavor, it
looks a little bit like almond meal.
We're just going to pour that over the
top and talking about meal, I've got my
slivered almonds here, pop those in as
well. Now we've got to sweeten this and
I've got 250 grams of soft brown sugar
that works out about 8 ounces, pop that
in there as well and we are starting to
run out of space which is absolutely
perfect because we're very nearly there.
Now over here I've got all that
wonderful zest for my oranges both of
the oranges and two lemons, pop the zest
in there all the juice from the lemons
and the oranges pour that over the top
and now we want to get our spice into
there. You want about 4 teaspoons of spice I'm
going to use a teaspoon of cinnamon,
probably about a teaspoon and a half of
powder ginger, about half a teaspoon of
mix cloves and also I'm going to grind
some fresh nutmeg in there as well.
Last thing the brandy but that's not
going in until after we've cooked our
mincemeat. Just come down here again
getting there now and the best you can,
coat all this fruit over with the sauce
and the juice that's in there now. If you
really want to do this properly you've
got to get your hand in there, turn all
this beautiful fruit over. Now if that
isn't the smell of christmas i don't
know what is, ideally leave this to soak
for at least three or four hours and let
the fruit absorb some of those juices
and then come back I'll show you what to
do next.
Now when the fruit has all plumped up
and absorbed some of that liquid take a
look at this now, what I'm going to do is
give you a couple of options. Either take
that fruit pop it into a big saucepan add a
cup of apple juice in there and just
simmer it for about an hour and a half
on a very low heat or you can do what I
do, get your oven on 110 degrees Celsius
that's 225 fahrenheit and then what
we're going to do is take all of this
fruit, pop it into a baking tray like
this. Flatten it down nice and evenly
across the tray and then we're just
going to take some silver foil, seal the
top of that, pop that into the oven.
You're going to leave it for a couple of
hours on that nice low temperature and
this is going to make the most delicious
mincemeat. Now whist that's on give this
video the thumbs, up get across and make
yourself some eggnog or a lovely mince pie
smoothie from my channel and join me
back here as soon as it comes out and
the smell in your house is going to be
Christmas number one.
So there you have it now that's been
in for a couple of hours just pop it
down there get my oven gloves off. Now
if I peel this back, probably a little bit warm,
not too hot though, see the steam coming
out of there now.
Now look at that beautiful stewed fruit.
Now that's had time for all that fruit
to get lovely and soft and caramelized. I'll
just give that a good stir through now.
It's at this point I'm going to add
brandy if you don't want to add brandy
into this you can leave this step out
but really this luxury mincemeat should
have, now I'm going to put about 4
tablespoons of brandy into the mincemeat,
you can just eyeball it if you like.
Then we're going to mix the brandy through.
Now the smell coming off of that is
absolutely delicious.
So I've mix the brandy through that now
whilst it's nice and hot
I've got some kilner jars, you could even
use regular jam jars and just recycle
them. What we want to do is sterilize
these with some hot water, then I'm going
to take my sweet mincemeat or my
mincemeat as I would call it and start
to pop it into the jars and there it is
a beautiful luxury jar of mincemeat.
Smells fantastic.
It's going to taste delicious, Now if you
join me in the next episode I'm going to
take this mincemeat and make some wonderful
mince-pies. I hope you give this a try
and please comment down below. Share the
love, give the thumbs-up and of course if
you want to make a more simple mincemeat
there's plenty of other recipes on my
channel. Everybody out there be good, have
a fantastic christmas, love to all, take
care and see you next time.
Now looking back at that video I miss
all my little Christmas bits and pieces
we have at christmastime. I've got a poinsettia
plant here which is great. I'm going to
leave a link up to a whole Christmas
playlist ,you can get across and check
out mince pies as well, many different
versions. Be good I will see you in the
next video, take care.