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Dessert

Grape Conserve

A preserve made from Concord grapes, walnuts, raisins, oranges, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Grape and orange 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 fruit

  1. Wash the grapes and place them in a kettle.

  2. Boil until soft.

  3. Rub the grapes through a colander to extract the juice.

  4. Cut the oranges into small pieces.

  5. Boil the orange rind in a separate pan of water until soft. Drain the rind and add fresh water. Boil again until soft.

Make the preserve

  1. Combine the thick grape juice, walnuts, raisins, orange pieces, and boiled orange rind in the kettle.

  2. Add 5 lbs of granulated sugar and boil until thickened.

  3. Pour into jelly glasses and seal.

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. Grape + orangetop 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. Walnut + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

  5. Walnut + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Concord grapes
Provide the main fruit body and juice, which gives the preserve its base flavor and body.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and, when boiled, helps the mixture thicken into a preserve.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture as they soften in the cooking liquid.
English walnut meats
Add crunch and a nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft fruit.
Oranges
Contribute acidity and aroma from the pieces and the rind.

The step that matters

Boil until thickened. Sugar and fruit must cook long enough to reach a thick, spreadable set. Too little boiling leaves a runny preserve that may spoil, while overcooking can make it stiff and caramelised.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

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