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Apricots in Brandy

Preserved apricots soaked in syrup and French brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Apricots in Brandy

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the apricots

  1. Combine the apricots and enough water to cover them in a pot.

  2. Add loaf sugar equal to half the weight of the apricots.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Skim off any foam.

  5. Add the apricots and boil for 5-6 minutes.

  6. Remove the apricots without syrup.

  7. Place the apricots on dishes to cool.

Finish and bottle

  1. Boil the syrup until it is reduced by half.

  2. Place the cooled apricots in bottles.

  3. Cover the apricots with equal parts syrup and French brandy.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Apricot + brandytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Apricot + syruptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. 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

Fresh apricots
The fruit that is poached and preserved, becoming tender and soaking up the syrup and brandy.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the syrup and, once boiled down, helps preserve the fruit.
French brandy
Adds aroma and flavour, and helps preserve the fruit in the finished bottles.

The step that matters

Boil the apricots only 5-6 minutes. Apricots are delicate; longer boiling breaks down their flesh and turns them mushy, while the fruit must still be cooked enough to soften and absorb the syrup.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy, syrup. 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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