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Apricot Paste, Green

A green apricot paste made by scalding apricots, mixing pulp with syrup and sugar, boiling, cooling, and setting in molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Apricot Paste, Green

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pulp

  1. Scald the apricots, then beat them and strain the soft pulp.

  2. Mix the pulp with syrup made from twice the weight of the fruit in loaf sugar.

Cook and set

  1. Boil the mixture for a short time.

  2. Remove from heat and let it cool.

  3. Pour the mixture into molds and boil until stiff.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Apricot + syruptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Apricots
Supply the fruit pulp and natural pectin that help the paste hold its shape.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the paste and, as the syrup thickens on boiling, helps it set firm.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until stiff. Sugar and pectin set as water evaporates and the mixture concentrates. Stopping too early leaves the paste soft, while boiling too long can make it hard and sticky.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Pearfits about as well
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup. 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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