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Another Way to Preserve Apricots

A method of preserving apricots by soaking, peeling, sugaring, and boiling them with kernels.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Another Way to Preserve Apricots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apricots

  1. Dip the apricots in hot water.

  2. Peel them with a silver knife.

  3. If large, remove the stones carefully.

  4. Roll the apricots in sugar.

  5. Place the sugared apricots in a large dish.

  6. Cover the apricots completely with sugar.

Rest in sugar

  1. Let the sugared apricots sit for 30 hours.

  2. Pour off the juice and sugar.

Cook the syrup

  1. Boil the liquid and skim it.

  2. Add the apricots to the liquid.

  3. Boil gently for 30 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and skim.

Add the kernels

  1. Blanch the kernels.

  2. Add the blanched kernels.

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. 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 fruit flavour and the soft, tender texture of the preserve.
Loaf sugar
Draws juice out of the fruit and, as a thick syrup, preserves it and adds sweetness.
Apricot kernels
Add a nutty, almond-like aroma to the preserve.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 30 minutes. A gentle simmer lets the sugar syrup penetrate the apricots and thicken slowly while keeping the fruit whole. Hard boiling breaks the fruit apart and can make the syrup over-reduce or turn bitter.

“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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