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Dried Apricots

Dried apricots prepared by soaking in syrup, draining, and drying over slow heat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and apricot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,098 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Dried Apricots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apricots

  1. Prepare the apricots as directed in recipe No. 130, giving the fruit three charges of syrup.

  2. Drain the apricots separately and place them on a brass wire drainer on a baking sheet.

Dry the apricots

  1. Put the drainer in a hot closet or screen at a slow heat to dry.

Finish the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar until it reaches 35 degrees strength (pearl degree).

  2. Add the lemon juice and mix with a spoon at the side of the pan.

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. Lemon + apricottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,098 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + apricottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Apricots
The main fruit, which becomes chewy and concentrated as its moisture is driven off.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, boiled to the pearl stage, forms the syrup that preserves it.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness of the sugar.

The step that matters

Boiling the sugar to the pearl stage. Sugar concentration decides how the syrup behaves. Undercooked syrup stays thin and leaves the fruit sticky and wet, while overcooked syrup turns hard or grainy. Stop at the stated stage and watch the pan closely.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, apricot. 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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