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Abricots in Brandy

A preserved apricot dessert soaked in brandy and syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and brandy work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 513 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Abricots in Brandy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apricots

  1. Choose fine, not quite ripe apricots and rub off the down with a cloth.

  2. Prick each apricot with a large pin.

  3. Blanch the apricots by placing them in boiling water for a moment, then drain and dry them.

Make the syrup and poach

  1. In a pot, combine 1 pound of sugar with 1 pint of water and heat until clarified.

  2. Add the apricots to the syrup and boil briefly, then remove from heat.

  3. Let the apricots sit in the syrup overnight, then strain them.

  4. Boil the syrup again several times, adding the apricots back in to simmer briefly.

Bottle

  1. Once cooled, place the apricots in large bottles, adding the syrup.

  2. Fill the bottles with brandy and cork them tightly.

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 + brandytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Apricots
Provide the fruit that is poached and softened in the sugar syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve the fruit.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the apricots and contributes aroma.

The step that matters

Blanching the apricots. Brief immersion in boiling water loosens the skin and helps the fruit take up syrup evenly. Leaving them too long can soften the flesh too much, so drain and dry them promptly.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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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