Why it works: Clove and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,129 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓
Cherry Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cherries
Stone the cherries and break the stones.
Simmer the stones in enough water to cover them for 15 minutes.
Strain out the kernels and add the cherries to the water.
Make the sauce
Add the claret, cloves, stale bread, and sugar to taste.
Stir in 1 pint of water and cook gently for 30 minutes.
Press the mixture through a sieve and boil again until moderately thick.
Serve
Serve hot with roast pork or game.
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.
-
Clove + breadtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,129 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
-
Clove + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together17,182 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
-
Bread + sugartop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,638 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Clove and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 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
- Cherries
- Provide the main fruit flavour and, once cooked and pressed, the body of the sauce.
- Claret
- Adds acidity and wine depth that balances the sweetness of the cherries.
- Stale bread
- Helps thicken the sauce as it cooks and is pressed through a sieve.
- Cloves
- Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the sauce.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the sauce to balance the tartness of the cherries and wine.
The step that matters
Boil again until moderately thick. Reducing concentrates the flavour and lets the pressed fruit and bread thicken the sauce. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while boiling too long makes it stiff once it cools.
Swap the clove
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Gingerfits about as well
- Clovethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, 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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