Why it works: Apricot and brandy work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 513 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓
Abricots À L’eau-de-vie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the apricots
Remove the gills from the apricots and prick them a few times with a fork.
Place them in a non-reactive basin and cover with enough water to submerge.
Bring to a boil, gently stirring with a slotted spoon until the skin softens.
Remove from heat, drain, and place in cold water until cool, then drain again.
Make the syrup and soak
In a non-reactive pot, combine sugar and water, heat until dissolved, and bring to a boil.
Add the apricots and boil for 1-2 minutes, then remove from heat.
Transfer apricots and syrup to a bowl and let sit overnight.
The next day, drain the apricots and strain the syrup back into the pot.
Reduce the syrup by half, then return the apricots to the pot and boil once.
Pour the apricots and syrup into a jar and let cool.
Add brandy and age
The next day, drain the apricots again and place them in a dry jar.
Reduce the syrup further and add enough brandy to cover the apricots.
Mix well, let cool, and pour over the apricots.
Cover with parchment, tie with string, and let sit for at least three weeks.
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.
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Apricot + brandytop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together513 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,630 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Apricots
- Provide the fruit that softens and absorbs the sweet syrup and brandy as it matures.
- Sugar
- Makes the syrup that sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it.
- Brandy
- Adds alcohol that helps preserve the fruit and contributes aroma.
- Coarse sea salt
- Helps firm and season the fruit during the initial soak.
The step that matters
Boiling the apricots in syrup. Boiling for only 1-2 minutes and then cooling them keeps the fruit intact. Overboiling breaks down the pectin and cell walls, leaving the apricots mushy.
Swap the apricot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotthe original
- Raisinfits about as well
- Figfits less well
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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