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 ↓
Spiced Cherries
Ingredients
Directions
Select sound cherries with an inch of stem attached.
Place cherries in jars with alternate layers of powdered sugar until jars are ¾ full.
Fill jars to overflowing with cold spiced vinegar, made by boiling a bag of whole spices in vinegar for 15 minutes.
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
- Sound cherries
- Form the fruit that gives the preserve its body and flavor.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the cherries and draws out juice as it dissolves into the vinegar.
- Spiced vinegar
- Adds acidity and preserving power while carrying the flavor of the whole spices.
The step that matters
Fill jars to overflowing with cold spiced vinegar. The cherries must stay fully submerged, since exposed fruit at the surface is more likely to spoil. Overfilling leaves no air gap, and the liquid has to cover the fruit completely for the preserve to keep.
“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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