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Apricots in Brandy

A preserved fruit dish of apricots simmered in syrup and French brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and brandy work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 513 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Apricots in Brandy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup

  1. Select fresh apricots that are not too ripe.

  2. For every half weight of apricots, add an equal weight of loaf sugar.

  3. Add enough water to cover the fruit.

  4. Boil the mixture. Skim off any foam.

Cook the apricots

  1. Add the apricots.

  2. Let them cook for 5 to 6 minutes.

  3. Remove the apricots without syrup.

  4. Place them on dishes to cool.

Reduce and bottle

  1. Boil the syrup until it is reduced by half.

  2. Once the apricots are cool, place them in bottles.

  3. Cover with equal parts syrup and French brandy.

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. Apricot + brandytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Fresh apricots
Provide the fruit that softens and flavours the preserve.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve the fruit.
French brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the finished apricots.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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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