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Dessert

Turkish Mint Paste

A sweet mint-flavored confection made with gelatin, sugar, lemon juice, mint syrup, and green color paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Gelatin and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 192 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Turkish Mint Paste

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatin and sugar

  1. Pour ½ cup cold water over 3 tablespoons granulated gelatin and let it stand until absorbed.

  2. In another bowl, pour ½ cup cold water over 2 cups granulated sugar and stir until dissolved.

Cook and flavor

  1. Heat the sugar mixture to boiling, then add the gelatin and cook for 20 minutes after boiling begins.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 4 tablespoons mint syrup, and green color paste to tint.

Set and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into an unbuttered pan and let it stand overnight.

  2. Once set, pull from the pan onto a sheet of paper and spread with sifted confectioners' sugar.

  3. Cut into pieces and roll each piece in the sifted sugar.

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. Gelatin + syruptop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together192 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + minttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Granulated gelatin
Forms the elastic gel that sets the paste into a firm, chewy texture.
Granulated sugar
Provides sweetness and, once cooked, the body and bulk of the paste.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the flavor.
Mint syrup
Supplies the mint flavor throughout the paste.

The step that matters

Cooking the gelatin and sugar mixture. Cooking for the full time after boiling begins drives off water and concentrates the sugar so the paste sets firm. Stirring in the lemon juice and mint off the heat keeps their flavors from weakening.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, sugar, lemon, 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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