Name: Apricot Compote
Ingredients: 6 to 8 apricots; ½ cup sugar; ⅓ cup water

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 Compote

Ingredients

6 to 8 apricots
½ cup sugar
⅓ cup water

Directions

Prepare

Choose apricots that are not too ripe, cut them in half, and remove the stones.

Cook

Boil the water and sugar in a frying pan.
Add the apricots to the boiling syrup and cook, skimming off any foam.
When the fruit is tender, transfer it to a deep dessert dish.
Reduce the syrup further, pour it over the apricots, and serve cold.

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.

Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked 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 main fruit flavour and soft, tender texture when simmered in syrup.
Sugar: Sweetens the syrup and helps it thicken as the water reduces.