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Preserved Siberian Crabs

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,291 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Preserved Siberian Crabs

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prick the crab apples with a fork five or six times.

  2. Simmer the apples in water until tender.

  3. Transfer the apples to cold water and drain them the next day.

  4. Place the dry apples in an earthen pan and pour boiling hot clarified sugar over them.

  5. The next day, drain off the syrup and boil it for ten minutes.

  6. Continue to boil the syrup every other day for five or six times until it thickens to the consistency of cream.

  7. Just before removing the syrup from heat, simmer the crabs in it.

  8. Pack the crabs into pots, cover with papers dipped in brandy, and tie them down.

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. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  4. Crab + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together407 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

  5. Crab + appletop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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 apple

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Applethe original
  4. Apricotfits about as well

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

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