Why it works: Sugar and apricot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,630 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Apricots Preserved, Without Fire
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the apricots in halves and remove the stones.
In a pan, layer the apricots and sprinkle with powdered sugar-candy.
Use a ratio of 1.5 pounds of sugar-candy to 1 pound of fruit.
Dry in the sun
Let the pan sit in the sun for four days, stirring the fruit three to four times daily.
After four days, transfer the apricots to pots for storage.
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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Sugar + apricottop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 softens and concentrates in flavour as moisture leaves in the sun.
- White sugar-candy
- Draws moisture out of the fruit and adds sweetness, helping preserve it.
The step that matters
Stirring the fruit during the sun-drying. Stirring three to four times daily exposes all surfaces evenly to sun and sugar, so the syrup forms uniformly and the fruit dries without spoiling in spots.
“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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