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Festive Fresh Blueberry and Cranberry Relish

"Holiday must. Super easy to prepare, 5 ingredient Fresh Blueberry Cranberry Relish. Everyone loves the blueberry twist and its beautiful on the table too. Make extra for leftovers and to put in beautiful jars as a holiday gift. Thankfully blueberries are readily available all winter long."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 35,031 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

The recipe

3 cups
Prep5 min
Cook15 min

Ingredients

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Pour the orange juice into a medium saucepan and add the white sugar. Heat over medium, stirring, until the sugar dissolves.

  2. Add the fresh cranberries and bring to a gentle boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 8 minutes until most of the berries have burst and the mixture thickens slightly.

  3. Stir in the fresh blueberries and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes more, until they just soften but still hold their shape.

  4. Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the grated orange zest and vanilla.

  5. Let the relish cool at room temperature for about 20 minutes, then transfer to a covered container and refrigerate until chilled, at least 1 hour, before serving.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Sugar + vanillatop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together35,031 recipes

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

  2. Orange + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,371 recipes

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

  3. Orange + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together19,210 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla share little aroma chemistry, yet 35,031 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the orange

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

  1. Figbetter flavor fit
  2. Strawberrybetter flavor fit
  3. Blueberrybetter flavor fit
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).