Why it works: Raisin and sorghum share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Cranberry Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Inspect and wash the cranberries.
Prepare the raisins by cutting them into small pieces.
Cook
Add the raisins and other ingredients to the cranberries.
Cook until tender.
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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Raisin + sorghumtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together28 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cranberries
- Provide the tart body of the sauce and pectin that thickens it as it cools.
- Raisins, figs or coconut
- Add sweetness and a soft, thicker texture as they cook.
- Sorghum or cane syrup
- Adds sweetness and a rounded flavour that balances the cranberry tartness.
The step that matters
Cook until tender. The cranberries need to become fully tender so their pectin can release and set the sauce as it cools. Stopping too early leaves a thin, watery sauce with firm fruit.
“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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