Why it works: Apple and quince work together. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓
Apple Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Wash and cut unripe fall apples or crab apples into slices, removing any damaged parts.
Boil the apples in a small quantity of water until thoroughly cooked.
Strain the liquid through a fine sieve or muslin.
In a pot, combine the strained liquid with sugar and apple pulp or damson/plum pulp to taste.
Optionally, add boiled quince seeds to assist in jellying.
Pour the mixture into vacuum-sealed bottles or jars.
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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Apple + quincetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together506 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + quincetop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,444 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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
Swap the quince
The recipe marks quince as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar):
- Pearfits better
- Vanillafits about as well
- Apricotfits about as well
- Quincethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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