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Strawberry Cordial

A sweet strawberry liqueur made by macerating strawberries with sugar, adding brandy, and bottling the strained liquid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Strawberry Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Macerate the fruit

  1. Sift 1 pound of sugar over 135 quarts of strawberries in a deep pan.

  2. Let it stand for 24 hours.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain the liquid from the fruit.

  2. For every large spoonful of juice, add 2 teaspoons of brandy.

  3. Bottle the mixture in small bottles and store in a cool place.

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 + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Strawberries
Provide the flavor and the juice that forms the cordial's base.
Pure loaf sugar
Draws juice out of the fruit and adds sweetness.
Brandy
Adds aroma and alcohol that helps keep the cordial stable in storage.

The step that matters

Add the brandy in the stated ratio. Brandy adds aroma and alcohol, which helps preserve the cordial. Too little may leave it less stable in storage, and too much will overpower the strawberry flavor, so measure the spoonfuls consistently.

“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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