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Dessert

Grape Jam

A sweet preserve made from grapes, raisins, sugar, and orange peel, cooked until jellied.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Grape and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,771 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Grape Jam

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the grapes until soft enough to rub through a colander.

  2. Add the grape skins and boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Stir in the sugar and cook for 20 minutes.

  4. Add the raisins and orange peel, and cook until jellied.

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. Grape + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  5. Grape + raisintop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

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

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Grapes
Provide the main fruit body, pectin and flavour for the jam.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and helps it thicken and set as it cooks.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and body to the jam.
Oranges
Contribute aromatic bitterness and citrus flavour from the rind.

The step that matters

Cooking until jellied. Sugar and fruit pectin set only when enough water has evaporated and the mixture reaches the right concentration. Stopping too early leaves a runny jam, while overcooking can make it stiff and dull in flavour.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grape, sugar, orange. 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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