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Dessert

Macedoine De Fruits

A chilled fruit compote made with currants, cherries, gooseberries, raspberries, and sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: White currant and red currant share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Macedoine De Fruits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick and mix the white currants, red currants, cherries, ripe gooseberries, and raspberries in a deep dish.

  2. Dissolve sufficient white sugar in enough water to cover the fruit, adjusting the amount based on the fruit's acidity.

  3. Pour the sugar water over the mixed fruit.

Rest and serve

  1. Let the mixture stand for two hours before serving.

  2. If available, chill the dish in ice for a refreshing dessert.

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. White currant + red curranttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. White currant + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together59 recipes

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White sugar
Sweetens the fruit and balances its acidity, with the amount adjusted to taste.
Red currants
Provide tart acidity and bright flavour that the sugar softens.
Raspberries
Contribute aroma and juice that mingles with the syrup as the fruit stands.

The step that matters

Adjusting the sugar syrup. Fruit acidity varies, so the amount of sugar must be judged by taste. Too little leaves the dish sharp, while too much masks the fruit's natural flavour. Sugar also draws water out of fruit through osmosis, so tasting the syrup before pouring keeps the balance right.

Swap the white currant

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

  1. Raspberryfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. White currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red currant, sugar. 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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