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Fruit Bouillon

Fruit bouillon is a chilled fruit syrup made from tart cherries, raspberries, currants, sugar, and corn starch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,168 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fruit Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fruit base

  1. Cook the fruit until tender.

  2. Rub the fruit through a colander and then through a sieve.

  3. Add the sugar and return to the heat.

  4. Mix corn-starch with a little cold water and add to the fruit mixture.

  5. Cook for 2 minutes after boiling, stirring constantly.

Cool and serve

  1. Pour into a bowl and let cool.

  2. Optionally, add a glass of claret when cold.

  3. Serve in punch glasses half-filled with cracked ice.

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 + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes
  3. Currant + corntop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together144 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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

Tart cherries or raspberries and currants
Provide the main fruit flavour, colour and body of the bouillon.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the fruit.
Corn-starch
Thickens the fruit liquid as it heats, giving it a smooth, light body.

The step that matters

Cook for 2 minutes after boiling, stirring constantly. Cornstarch must reach a boil and be stirred while cooking so its starch granules swell evenly and thicken the liquid without lumps or a starchy taste.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, corn. 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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