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Dried Fruits

A sweetened, simmered mixture of soaked dried fruits cooked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

Dried Fruits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the dried fruits thoroughly in cold water and drain.

  2. Soak the fruits in cold water to cover for 1 to 3 days in a cold place.

Cook

  1. Bring the soaked fruits to a boil, then cook in a double boiler or fireless cooker for 2 or more hours until tender but unbroken.

  2. Sprinkle sugar or syrup over the fruits and cook for an additional 20 to 30 minutes without stirring.

  3. Optionally, add a little salt to the water before cooking and any desired seasonings at the same time.

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. Apple + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  2. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

  3. Apricot + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,098 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Dried fruits
Provide the main body, flavour and sweetness of the compote as they soften and release their sugars.
Sugar or syrup
Adds sweetness and helps give the cooked fruit a glossy, thicker syrup.

The step that matters

Cooking until tender but unbroken. Long, gentle cooking softens the dried fruit without boiling it apart. Keeping the heat low and avoiding stirring helps the pieces hold their shape while the syrup develops.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, raisin, apricot, sugar):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, raisin, apricot, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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