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 {O'uisinihre Parisienne}
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the apricots
Peel and stone the apricots.
Cook the apricots in a little water until tender and transparent.
Mash the cooked apricots and pass them through a fine sieve.
Drain the mixture until dry.
Weigh the dried mixture.
Make and dry the paste
Pound the apricot puree with an equal weight of powdered sugar in a mortar.
Spread the paste on flat dishes to dry for several days.
Cut the dried paste into rounds.
Dust the rounds with powdered sugar.
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
- Apricots
- Provide the fruit body, flavour and pectin that give the paste its set.
- Powdered sugar
- Adds sweetness and, with drying, helps the paste hold its shape and resist spoiling.
The step that matters
Drain the mixture until dry. Excess water left in the cooked apricot puree prolongs drying and can let the paste spoil or become sticky. Draining well before weighing and pounding gives a firm, stable paste.
“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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