Skip to main content

Green Apricot Compote

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apricot and lemon 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 ↓

Green Apricot Compote

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Blanch and prepare green apricots as for preserves.

  2. Cover the blanched apricots with a napkin to retain their green color, then immerse them in cold water and drain on a sieve.

  3. In a saucepan, boil fine clarified sugar with water to create a syrup.

  4. Add the apricots to the syrup, ensuring they are fully covered, and boil briefly.

  5. Remove from heat and let the apricots soak in the syrup for 4 to 5 hours.

  6. Drain the apricots, then boil the syrup until it thickens.

  7. Return the apricots to the pan, cover with syrup, and let cool before serving.

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. Apricot + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,098 recipes

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

  2. Apricot + sugartop 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

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apricot, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

More apricot compote recipes

Green 7 See all 23 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes