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Old Dominion Brandy Peaches

Peaches preserved in a syrup of sugar, water, egg white, mace, cloves, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Old Dominion Brandy Peaches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Melt sugar in water over low heat, stirring constantly, to make a syrup.

  2. Add the slightly beaten egg white and stir into the boiling liquid.

  3. Skim off any refuse that clings to the egg to keep the syrup clear.

  4. Boil the syrup until it thickens.

  5. Remove the syrup from heat.

  6. Let the syrup cool.

Cook the peaches

  1. Peel the peaches carefully and insert two cloves into each peach.

  2. Drop the peaches into the hot syrup in a single layer and simmer until tender enough for a straw to penetrate the stone.

  3. Remove the peaches with a perforated skimmer to a flat dish.

  4. Let the peaches cool.

  5. Repeat with remaining peaches until all are cooked.

Jar and store

  1. Divide the peaches among eight sterilized quart jars, adding one blade of mace to each jar.

  2. Stir the whiskey into the lukewarm syrup and pour over the peaches in the jars.

  3. Seal the jars and store in a cool, dark, dry place.

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. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Peach + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together280 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Peach + macetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together92 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches
Provide the fruit, which softens during simmering and carries the flavor of the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve the peaches.
Whiskey
Adds alcohol and aroma, and helps preserve the peaches in the jars.
Egg white
Collects impurities as it cooks in the syrup, so the syrup stays clear when skimmed.

The step that matters

Skim off refuse from the egg white. As the egg white cooks in the boiling syrup it traps impurities. Skimming them off keeps the syrup clear; leaving them in makes it cloudy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, sugar, clove, egg. 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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