Why it works: Lemon and apricot 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 ↓
Dried Apricots
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the apricots as directed in No. 130, giving them three charges of syrup.
Drain the apricots and place them on a brass wire drainer on a baking sheet, spaced apart.
Put the drainer in a hot closet at a slow heat to dry.
Boil the sugar with the lemon juice until it reaches the pearl degree (35 degrees strength).
Work the sugar with a spoon until it becomes dulled or whitish.
Add the dried apricots to the sugar, gently shake to coat, and lift them out with a silver fork.
Place the apricots outer side up on the brass drainer and return to the hot closet to dry the sugar for about an hour.
Store the dried apricots in boxes with clean paper between each layer.
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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Lemon + apricottop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,098 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + apricottop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,630 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 (sugar, apricot):
- Vanillafits better
- Peachfits better
- Plumfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, apricot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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