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Dessert

Nut Conserve

A sweet preserve of sliced oranges, raisins, walnuts, almonds, and lemon, thickened with sugar and grape 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 ↓

Nut Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Thinly slice the oranges and place them in a large pot.

  2. Add the lemon juice and grated rind, chopped raisins, walnuts, and almonds.

Cook

  1. Dissolve the sugar in the grape juice and pour it over the fruit mixture.

  2. Simmer very slowly until the mixture reduces to a thick marmalade.

Jar and serve

  1. Pour into glasses and seal.

  2. Serve with game or roast.

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. Walnut + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together993 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

  5. Orange + grapetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the conserve and, as it cooks down, helps thicken it into a spreadable set.
English walnuts
Add crunch and a rich, slightly bitter flavour that balances the sweet fruit.
Blanched almonds
Add texture and a mild nutty flavour throughout the conserve.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy body as they soften during the long simmer.
Oranges
Provide bright citrus flavour and natural pectin that helps the mixture set.

The step that matters

Simmer very slowly until thick. Long, gentle cooking drives off water so the mixture thickens into a marmalade. Too fast a boil can scorch the sugar and fruit on the bottom of the pot, while under-reducing leaves the conserve runny and prone to spoiling in the jar.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Cranberryfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, lemon, raisin, walnut, almond, 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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