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Grapes in Bunches, Wet

A preserved grape recipe using salt and thin syrup, simmered and repeatedly boiled until the syrup thickens.

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

Grapes in Bunches, Wet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grapes

  1. Remove the seeds from the grapes using a large pin.

  2. Mix the grapes with cold water and add the salt in a large preserving pan.

  3. Cover the grapes with a sheet of paper and simmer over low heat for 30 minutes.

  4. Let the grapes cool in the water, then transfer them to a brown pan or tub with some water until the next day.

Preserve in syrup

  1. Drain the water from the grapes and boil the thin syrup on the stove.

  2. Add the grapes to the boiling syrup and cook for 5 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and place the grapes in an earthen pan, covering them with paper.

  4. The next day, drain the syrup and boil it for 15 minutes.

  5. Add the grapes back to the syrup and repeat this process daily until the syrup thickens and the grapes look good.

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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

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

  3. Grape + syruptop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Grapes
Provide the fruit that softens in brine and then becomes tender in the syrup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the grapes and firms their flesh before they are preserved.
Sugar syrup
Sweetens the grapes and, through repeated boiling, preserves them by drawing out moisture.

The step that matters

Repeated daily boiling of the syrup. Each reboiling concentrates the sugar in the syrup. If the syrup is not thickened enough over the repeated days, the grapes will not keep well and may spoil.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, sugar. 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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