Why it works: Grape and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,490 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Grape Preserve
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the grapes
Remove grapes from stems and pop the pulps from the skins, using one in each hand.
Place the pulp in a porcelain kettle and gently stew until the seeds loosen.
Strain the pulp through a sieve.
Rub the pulp through the sieve.
Weigh the pulp with the skins.
For every pound of mixture, add 1 pound of sugar.
Cook and seal
Put the skins and juice in a kettle, cover, and cook slowly until the skins are tender.
While still boiling, add the sugar and move the kettle back to avoid boiling again.
Keep the mixture very hot for 15 minutes.
If the sugar is fully dissolved, pour the fruit into cans and screw down the covers immediately.
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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Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,490 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
- Grapes
- Provide the pulp, skins and juice that form the body and flavour of the preserve.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the preserve and helps it keep by binding water and thickening the mixture.
The step that matters
Keeping the sugar dissolved before canning. Sugar must fully dissolve while the mixture is hot, or it can crystallise in the finished preserve. Keeping the kettle off the boil avoids scorching and over-thickening before the fruit is sealed.
“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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