Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Crab Apple Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Wash the apples, remove stems and blossoms, and cut them into quarters.
Place the apples in a kettle and add cold water until it nearly covers the apples.
Cook slowly until the apples are soft, then mash and drain through a coarse sieve without squeezing.
Allow the juice to drip through the bag for clarity.
Boil the juice for twenty minutes, then add an equal quantity of hot sugar.
Boil for five minutes, skim off any foam, and pour into glasses.
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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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
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