Why it works: Brandy and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,340 recipes. Both carry acetoin, which smells butter, cream. The science ↓
Strawberry Preserves
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the berries
Hull the strawberries and wash them if sandy; drain well.
Weigh the berries and measure an equal weight of sugar.
In a porcelain-lined preserving kettle, layer sugar and strawberries, finishing with a thick layer of sugar on top.
Cover the kettle and let the mixture sit overnight.
Cook and jar
The next morning, place the kettle over low heat without stirring and gently boil until the berries look clear, skimming off any scum.
Once clear, remove from heat and let cool, keeping covered.
Transfer the berries to glass jars, placing a round of paper soaked in brandy over each jar, and seal airtight.
If using tumblers, seal with paper dipped in slightly beaten egg white.
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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Brandy + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,340 recipes
Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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 fruit body, flavor and color of the preserve.
- Sugar
- Draws water out of the berries and preserves them while sweetening the mixture.
The step that matters
Gently boil without stirring. Stirring breaks up the strawberries and makes the preserve cloudy and mushy. Gentle heat with skimming keeps the berries whole and the syrup clear.
“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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