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To Brandy Peaches

Peaches preserved in brandy syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and brandy work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 339 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

To Brandy Peaches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Prepare a lye solution with scalding potash and immerse the peaches for a few minutes.

  2. Remove the peaches, rub them clean with a coarse cloth, and place them in cold water.

Make the syrup

  1. Sprinkle some sugar over the peaches to create liquid, then add the remaining sugar and boil for 45 minutes.

  2. Remove the peaches from the syrup and place them on dishes to cool overnight.

Brandy and jars

  1. Combine 1 pt of syrup with 1 pt of white brandy, mix well, and pour over the peaches in jars.

  2. Seal the jars tightly.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Peach + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together339 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Heath peaches
Provide the fruit that is softened in lye, then cooked and preserved in syrup.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the fruit and forms the thick syrup that preserves it.
White brandy
Adds aroma and alcohol that helps preserve the peaches in the jars.

The step that matters

Boiling the peaches in sugar syrup. Sugar draws water out of the fruit and thickens the syrup as it boils. Boiling too hard or too long can break the peaches apart, while too little time leaves the syrup thin and the fruit less preserved.

Swap the peach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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