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Dessert

Grape Conserve

A preserve made from Concord grapes, sugar, raisins, and chopped oranges.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Grape and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,771 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Grape Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grapes

  1. Remove the skins from the grapes.

  2. Cook the pulps.

  3. Pass the cooked pulps through a colander to remove the seeds.

Cook the preserve

  1. Combine the skins and pulps in a pot.

  2. Add the sugar, raisins, grapes, and chopped oranges.

  3. Cook for 20 minutes after it begins to boil.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  5. Grape + raisintop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 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

Concord grapes
Provide the main fruit flavor, pulp, and skins that give the preserve its body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the fruit by binding water and slowing spoilage.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and a chewy texture as they soften in the syrup.
Oranges
Add acidity and aroma that brighten the sweet grape flavor.

The step that matters

Cook for 20 minutes after it begins to boil. Timing the boil matters because the preserve must reduce enough to thicken and set as it cools. Too short leaves it runny, and too long can make it dark, stiff, or sugary.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

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