Name: Fruit Preserve
Ingredients: 2 pounds Malaga raisins (stoned); 1 pint raspberry juice; 5 pounds sugar; 3 oranges (cut into small squares, peel left on)

Why it works: Raspberry and orange work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 521 recipes. Both carry damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fruit Preserve

Ingredients

2 pounds Malaga raisins (stoned)
1 pint raspberry juice
5 pounds sugar
3 oranges (cut into small squares, peel left on)

Directions

Mix all ingredients together in a large pot and boil for 20 minutes.
Pour into small jars or glasses for storage.

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.

Raspberry + orangetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together521 recipes

Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).
Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,684 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Raisin + raspberrytop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together87 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Malaga raisins: Provide the main fruit body, sweetness and bulk for the preserve.
Raspberry juice: Adds liquid and fruity flavour to the preserve.
Sugar: Sweetens the preserve and helps it thicken and keep as it cooks down.
Oranges: Add citrus aroma and a bitter-sweet note from the peel left on.