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Wine Dressing

A simple dressing made with sherry wine, apricot brandy, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Wine Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the sherry wine, apricot brandy, and sugar together.

  2. Let the mixture stand until the sugar has dissolved.

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. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Apricot + brandytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Sherry + apricottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together173 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Wine + apricottop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together247 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sherry wine
Provides the main liquid base and a mellow, fruity wine flavour.
Apricot brandy
Adds concentrated fruit aroma and a sweet, warming flavour to the dressing.
Sugar
Sweetens the dressing and dissolves into the liquid to balance the wine and brandy.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand until the sugar has dissolved. Sugar dissolves slowly in alcohol-based liquids, so undissolved crystals leave a gritty texture and an uneven sweetness. Standing lets the sugar fully dissolve and the flavours blend evenly.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Apricotthe original
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Pineapplefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, wine, brandy, sugar. 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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