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Dessert

Plum Relish

A sweet relish made from damson plums, sugar, raisins, orange and lemon zest and juice.

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 ↓

Plum Relish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Remove the pits from the Damson plums.

  2. Combine the plums, sugar, raisins, orange rind, orange juice, lemon rind, and lemon juice in a large pot.

  3. Boil the mixture for 30 minutes, stirring constantly.

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. Plum + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Plum + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together623 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Damson plums
Provide the fruit base, pectin for setting, and tart flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the relish as it thickens.
Seeded raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture as the relish cooks down.
Oranges
Contribute juice for acidity and rind for fragrant citrus aroma.
Lemons
Add bright acidity and aromatic oils from the rind to balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil for 30 minutes, stirring constantly. Sugar and fruit thicken and darken as water evaporates, and the mixture can scorch on the bottom of the pot. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly and prevents burning while the relish sets.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Plumthe original

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