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Crab Apple Relish

A preserve made from sliced crab apples, chopped oranges, orange rind, and sugar boiled to a jelly consistency.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Crab Apple Relish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the crab apples and chop the oranges finely.

  2. Grate the rind of one orange.

  3. Weigh the sliced crab apples and chopped oranges, then measure out an equal amount of sugar.

Cook

  1. Combine all ingredients in a pot and boil until a jelly consistency is formed.

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 + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 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. Crab + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together407 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

  4. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  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

What each ingredient does

Crab apples
Provide pectin and tart flavor that help the relish set into a jelly-like texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the relish and helps it thicken and set as it cooks.
Oranges
Add bright citrus acidity and aroma, with rind adding fragrant oil.

The step that matters

Boil until a jelly consistency is formed. Sugar and fruit pectin set together only at a sufficient concentration, so stopping too early leaves a runny relish while boiling too long can scorch the sugar and dull the flavor.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Quincefits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, apple, 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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