Name: Juried Apricots
Ingredients: 1 pound apricots; ½ pound double-refined sugar

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 ↓

Juried Apricots

Ingredients

1 pound apricots
½ pound double-refined sugar

Directions

Prepare

Peel and stone the apricots.
Place them in a preserving pan.

Macerate

Sprinkle a little sugar among the apricots and cover them with the remaining sugar.
Let them sit for 24 hours, turning them in the syrup three or four times.

Cook

Boil the apricots quickly until they look clear.

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: Supply the fruit, which softens and turns translucent as its sugar concentrates during cooking.
Double-refined sugar: Draws water out of the fruit and builds a thick syrup that preserves and sweetens it.