Why it works: Apricot and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓
Dried Apricot Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Soak the dried apricots in water, then drain.
Add sugar to the apricots and boil until the mixture jellies.
If desired, add a few blanched almonds for improvement.
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.
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Apricot + almondtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together852 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,679 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Dried apricots
- Supplies the fruit pulp, flavor and natural pectin that help the jam thicken.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jam and, with boiling, helps it set into a gel.
The step that matters
Boil until the mixture jellies. Boiling concentrates the sugar and fruit pectin until they form a gel. Stop too early and the jam stays runny; cook too long and it turns stiff and sugary.
“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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