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Quince Cordial

A quince cordial made by reducing quince parings and cores, dissolving sugar, adding brandy, and infusing with bitter almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Quince and almond share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 69 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Quince Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Cover the parings and cores of the quinces with water and boil until reduced from 1 gallon to ½ gallon.

  2. Once thick and clear, stir in the white sugar until dissolved.

Bottle and rest

  1. Add the white brandy and pour the mixture into very clean wine bottles.

  2. Add 4-5 blanched bitter almonds to each bottle.

  3. Shake each bottle well and cork tightly.

  4. Let it sit for one week before using.

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. Quince + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Quince + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together91 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Brandy + almondtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,969 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Quince parings and cores
Provide the main fruit flavour and natural pectin that thickens the reduced base.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and body, balancing the tartness of the reduced quince liquid.
White brandy
Adds alcohol that extracts and preserves the flavour of the quince base.
Blanched bitter almonds
Contribute a distinct almond aroma that flavours the finished liqueur.

The step that matters

Reducing the quince base. Boiling down the liquid concentrates the quince flavour and pectin, so it turns thick and clear before sugar goes in. Stopping at the stated volume keeps the base rich without becoming too concentrated to balance.

“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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