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Dessert

Spiced Grapes

A preserved grape dish flavored with sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Grapes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grapes

  1. Wash the grapes thoroughly.

  2. Simmer the grapes in just enough water to cover them until soft.

  3. Press the grapes through a sieve to remove stones and skins.

Make the spiced grapes

  1. In a pot, combine the strained grapes with sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and grated nutmeg.

  2. Return to heat and boil down the mixture.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Grapes
Provide the fruit base, with pulp and juice that form the body of the mixture.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and thickens it as the liquid reduces.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the mixture.

The step that matters

Boil down the mixture. Reducing the mixture concentrates sugar and fruit solids so it thickens. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while overcooking can scorch the sugar on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, clove, allspice, nutmeg):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, clove, allspice, nutmeg. 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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