Why it works: Sugar and lime are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 29% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,332 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Candied Fruits
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make a syrup by combining 1 lb of sugar with 1 quart of water.
Boil the fruit in the syrup as you would for preserving.
Drain the fruit and sprinkle it with crystallized sugar.
Dry the fruit slowly in a 400°F (200°C) oven with the door open or in the hot sun.
Optionally, soak the fruit in lime water (2 teaspoons of lime to 1 quart of water) for 12 to 24 hours before boiling.
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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Sugar + limetop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,332 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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