Why it works: Grape and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,490 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Grape Preserves
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pick grapes from the stem, wash, drain, and weigh them.
Use the same amount of white sugar as grapes.
In a bright tin dish-pan, stir the grapes and sugar together.
Cook
Set the pan in the oven until hot, then place it on the stove.
Stir continually from the bottom until it boils.
Move one side of the pan off the stove, keeping the other side hot.
Use a long-handled skimmer to remove the seeds as they rise on the cool side.
Be careful not to let the mixture burn.
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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Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,490 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Grapes
- Provide the fruit base, flavour, and the pectin and body that the preserve sets from.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the preserve and helps it thicken and keep as it cooks down.
The step that matters
Stir continually from the bottom until it boils. Sugar and fruit settle and scorch on the hot base of the pan, and burnt flavour spreads through the whole batch. Constant stirring keeps the mixture moving and evenly heated.
“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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