Name: To Bottle Apricots Whole
Ingredients: Apricots; 22° syrup (sugar syrup)

Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Bottle Apricots Whole

Ingredients

Apricots
22° syrup (sugar syrup)

Directions

Prepare

Select apricots that have fallen before they are fully ripe.
Place the whole apricots in bottles.
Fill the bottles with 22° syrup.

Seal and cook

Cork the bottles and tie them down.
Boil for 20 minutes.

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.

Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Apricot + syruptop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apricots: Provide the fruit that is preserved whole, supplying flavour and texture after cooking.
Sugar syrup: Sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it by drawing out moisture and limiting spoilage.