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Preserved Crab-apples

Preserved crab-apples are sweetened and boiled in grape-leaf infused syrup, then jarred and sealed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and grape match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,659 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Preserved Crab-apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Wash the crab-apples.

  2. Cover the bottom of a pot with grape leaves.

  3. Place the apples in the pot with a little water.

  4. Cover the pot tightly.

  5. Simmer gently over low heat until the apples turn yellow.

  6. Remove the apples.

  7. Spread them on a large dish to cool.

  8. Pare and core the apples.

  9. Return them to the pot with fresh grape leaves and a little water.

  10. Simmer again until the apples turn green, without boiling.

Make the syrup

  1. Weigh the apples and use 1 pound of loaf sugar for every pound of apples.

  2. Add just enough water to the sugar to dissolve it.

  3. Boil and skim the mixture.

Cook and jar

  1. Add the apples to the syrup.

  2. Boil until they are clear and soft.

  3. Transfer the apples to jars.

  4. Pour the warm syrup over them.

  5. Let the jars cool.

  6. Seal the jars with brandy paper.

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. Apple + grapetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,659 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  3. Crab + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together407 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

  4. Crab + appletop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Crab-apples
Provide the fruit, which softens and turns clear when simmered in syrup.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, in syrup, helps preserve it and keep it clear.
Grape leaves
Lining the pot during simmering, adding a subtle aroma to the apples.

The step that matters

Simmering without boiling. Simmering gently keeps the apples whole and tender; a hard boil would break down their flesh and make them mushy.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Quincefits better
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, apple, 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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