Skip to main content
Dessert

Compote of Obeen Apricots or Almonds

A compote made by boiling green apricots or almonds, then simmering them in a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apricot and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,630 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Compote of Obeen Apricots or Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Boil water with soda.

  2. Add apricots or green almonds to the boiling water.

  3. Remove them with a strainer and rub in a cloth to remove the down.

  4. Place them in cold water as you finish each one.

  5. Return them to boiling water until tender, checking with a pin.

  6. Transfer to cold water again.

Make the syrup and serve

  1. Make a syrup with sugar and water.

  2. Add the apricots or almonds to the syrup and simmer gently until they are bright green.

  3. Serve with the syrup.

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apricots or green almonds
Provide the fruit itself, which softens and turns bright green when simmered in syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve the fruit's shape and texture.
Soda
Raises the water's alkalinity, which helps the fruit turn and hold a bright green colour.

The step that matters

Returning the fruit to boiling water until tender. Cooking stops when the fruit is tender, and this is judged by testing with a pin. Undercooking leaves it firm, while overcooking breaks down the flesh and dulls the green colour.

“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.

You might also like

Apricot Ice CreamApricot Ice Cream26 recipesMixed Fruit SherbetMixed Fruit Sherbet6 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes