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Ginger Apples

A preserved apple and ginger mixture sweetened with sugar and infused with ginger water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,424 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ginger Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare and quarter the apples.

  2. Fill a jar with alternate layers of apples, sugar, and whole ginger.

  3. Cover the jar and let it stand for 48 hours to harden.

  4. Infuse the bruised ginger in boiling water for 24 hours, then strain through muslin.

  5. Add the strained ginger water to the jar contents.

Cook

  1. Boil for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

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. Apple + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

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

  3. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Ginger and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Hard and juicy apples
Provide the main fruit, with firm flesh that holds its shape during cooking.
White sugar
Sweetens the dish and draws moisture out of the fruit to form syrup.
Whole ginger
Adds warm, aromatic flavour as it infuses into the apples and syrup.
Bruised ginger
Releases more ginger flavour into the water used to moisten the jar contents.

The step that matters

Let the jar stand for 48 hours to harden. Standing lets the sugar draw liquid from the apples, forming a syrup. The apples need this time to firm up before boiling, so they keep their shape rather than falling apart.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ginger, sugar):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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