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Dessert

Grape Conserve

A preserve made from grape pulp, orange skins and juice, walnuts, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and grape are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,771 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Grape Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pulp

  1. Skin the grapes and cook the pulp until the seeds separate.

  2. Pass the mixture through a colander.

Cook the preserve

  1. Add the skins and juice of the oranges, walnut meats, and sugar.

  2. Cook for twenty minutes as you would for jelly.

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. Orange + grapetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Grape + walnuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Orange + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Grapes
Provide the main fruit flavour and the pulp that forms the body of the preserve.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as the mixture cooks down, helps it thicken to a spreadable set.
Oranges
Their juice and skins add acidity and a bright, slightly bitter aroma.
Walnut meats
Add texture and a nutty crunch to the finished preserve.

The step that matters

Cooking time for the set. As water evaporates, the sugar and fruit concentrate and the preserve thickens. Cooking too briefly leaves it runny, while cooking too long can make it stiff and prone to scorching on the bottom.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, grape, walnut, meat. 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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