Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Picexed Peaches
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine sugar and vinegar in a pot and bring to a boil.
Pour the boiling mixture over the fruit.
Repeat daily
The next day, strain the liquid and bring it to a boil again.
Repeat this process for nine days.
Finish
On the ninth day, boil the fruit and syrup together for ten minutes.
Add spices to taste.
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 + vinegartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps preserve the fruit in the syrup.
- Vinegar
- Adds acidity and tang, which helps preserve the fruit.
- Fruit
- Forms the main body of the dish and soaks up the flavored syrup.
The step that matters
Straining and reboiling the syrup each day. Each day the syrup must be strained and fully brought back to a boil before it goes over the fruit. Boiling concentrates the sugar and vinegar and keeps the syrup hot enough to slowly penetrate the fruit, which is what preserves it over the nine days.
“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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