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Dessert

Nut Conserve

A preserve made from fruit juice, sugar, sliced oranges, lemon juice and rind, raisins, walnuts, and filberts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Nut Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine the fruit juice and sugar.

  2. Stir until the sugar dissolves.

  3. Add the sliced oranges, lemon juice, lemon rind, raisins, walnuts, and filberts slowly.

  4. Cook for about 1 hour until the mixture thickens to a marmalade consistency.

  5. Pour into jars and let cool.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Grape + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Grape + walnuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Lemon + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

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

  5. Orange + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, with the cooking, helps it thicken to a spreadable set.
Fruit juice
Provides the liquid base that the sugar dissolves into and the fruit cooks in.
Oranges
Add bright citrus flavor and pectin-rich peel and pulp that help the preserve set.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy body to the preserve.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a rich, slightly bitter nutty flavor that contrasts with the sweet fruit.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture thickens to a marmalade consistency. Sugar and fruit pectin set as water evaporates, so the preserve thickens during the simmer. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while cooking too long can make it stiff and prone to scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the filbert

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (grape, sugar, orange, lemon, raisin, walnut):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Filbertthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grape, sugar, orange, lemon, raisin, walnut. 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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