Skip to main content

Abricots a LA Parisienne

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apricot and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 608 recipes mention both. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

  1. Poach the halved apricots in vanilla-flavoured syrup.

  2. Cool and drain the apricots.

  3. Reconstruct the apricots by joining the halves with a piece of vanilla ice-cream, the size of a walnut, in the center.

  4. Set the apricots on large overturned macaroons.

  5. Cover with vanilla-flavoured Chantilly cream shaped like a cone.

  6. Sprinkle with fine filberts.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Apricot + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together608 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Vanilla + filberttop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together38 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  3. Vanilla + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together1,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cream + filberttop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together77 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Vanilla + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together12,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Vanilla and cream share little aroma chemistry, yet 12,294 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the filbert

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apricot, vanilla, syrup, cream):

  1. Almondbetter flavor fit
  2. Hazelnutbetter flavor fit
  3. Chestnutbetter flavor fit
  4. Filbertthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apricot, vanilla, syrup, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

You might also like

Illustration of Vanilla Ice CreamIllustrationVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesIllustration of Apricot Ice CreamIllustrationApricot Ice Cream26 recipesIllustration of Oranges in SyrupIllustrationOranges in Syrup9 recipesIllustration of Mixed Fruit SherbetIllustrationMixed Fruit Sherbet6 recipes