Why it works: Apricot and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,630 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Apricot Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Make the paste
Place ripe apricots in a preserving pan with a little sugar.
Cook on the side of the range until reduced to a paste.
Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.
Add ½ lb of sugar for every 1 lb of pulp and boil for 10 minutes.
Dry and set
Spread the mixture thinly on plates or in molds.
Dry in a cool oven.
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.
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Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,630 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Ripe apricots
- Provide the fruit pulp that becomes the paste, carrying most of the flavour and body.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and, once boiled down, helps the paste thicken and keep its shape when dried.
The step that matters
Boiling the pulp with sugar. Sugar boiled with fruit pulp concentrates the mixture and raises its sugar content, which helps it set firm and keep well. Stopping too early leaves it soft and sticky, while boiling too long can make it stiff and dark.
“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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