Skip to main content
Main

Angelica

A preserved dish of angelica stalks cured in salt and boiled syrup.

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

Why it works: Angelica and syrup work together. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 111 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Angelica

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stalks

  1. Boil the angelica stalks in water until soft, then transfer to cold water.

  2. Remove the skin and strings with a knife, then soak in cold water again.

  3. Boil the stalks until they appear white, then drain and cool.

  4. Combine the stalks with ½ teacup of coarse sea salt and let cool.

  5. Drain again and place in an earthen pan.

Preserve in syrup

  1. Pour boiling syrup over the stalks until they float.

  2. After 24 hours, drain the syrup and add fresh syrup if needed.

  3. Boil the syrup again and pour it over the stalks, removing any scum.

  4. Continue boiling for 6-7 days, finishing with the syrup at 'Large Pearl.'

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. Angelica + syruptop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together111 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

Angelica stalks
Form the main body of the preserve, becoming tender and translucent as they absorb syrup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and firms the stalks before they are cooked in syrup.
Syrup
Sweetens and preserves the stalks, replacing their water to keep them firm and glossy.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup to 'Large Pearl'. Syrup must reach the right sugar concentration to preserve the stalks; too little cooking leaves it thin and prone to spoiling, while overcooking makes it hard and sugary.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes