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Peach Sauce

Peach sauce made by boiling whole peaches in a vinegar‑sugar syrup with cloves and optional cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Peach Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the peaches well and insert two cloves into each peach.

Make the syrup and cook the peaches

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar and sugar to make the syrup.

  2. Boil the peaches in the syrup until tender.

Jar and finish

  1. Place the peaches in jars and pour the syrup over them.

  2. If desired, add stick cinnamon to the syrup.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Peach + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Peach + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together280 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Whole peaches
Provide the fruit body, which softens and absorbs flavor as it simmers in the syrup.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and gives the sauce its tang.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and thickens it slightly as it dissolves and reduces.
Cloves
Add a warm, aromatic spice flavor that infuses into the peaches.

The step that matters

Boil the peaches until tender. Heat softens the peaches' cell walls and pectin, so they become tender. Boiling too long can break them down into mush, so check them as they cook.

“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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