Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Stewed Prunes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash and soak the prunes in the water overnight.
Place the prunes in a pan with sugar and the lemon rind.
Cook and serve
Cook very slowly until tender, about 1 hour.
Cool and serve.
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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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
- Prunes
- Soaking softens the dried fruit, and slow cooking makes it tender and moist.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps thicken the cooking liquid into a light syrup.
The step that matters
Cook very slowly until tender. High heat makes the liquid boil hard, which can split the prune skins and break the fruit apart. A gentle simmer lets the flesh soften evenly while it holds its shape.
“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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