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Drink

French Parfait Amour, or Perfect Love

A French liqueur made from cedrat or lemon rind, brandy, sugar, bitter almonds, spices, and alum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,498 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

French Parfait Amour, or Perfect Love

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the infusion

  1. Pound the rinds of cedrat or lemons in a mortar.

  2. Infuse the rinds and cochineal in brandy for 24 hours.

Make the syrup

  1. Melt sugar in boiling water until dissolved.

  2. Add pounded bitter almonds to the syrup.

Combine and finish

  1. Pour the syrup into the brandy, adding cinnamon and coriander seeds.

  2. Dissolve roche alum and crystal mineral in hot water, then add the clear liquid to the mixture.

  3. Let the liquor stand for 6 days, then strain through a flannel jelly bag.

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. Lemon + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Cinnamon + coriandertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Almond + coriandertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together563 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Brandy
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the rinds, almonds and spices.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the finished liqueur.
Cochineal
Provides the red colour of the liqueur.
Cedrat or lemon rinds
Supply citrus aroma and bitter oils infused into the brandy.
Bitter almonds
Contribute a nutty, marzipan-like aroma to the liqueur.

The step that matters

Let the liquor stand for 6 days. Resting lets the flavours blend and lets fine particles settle, so the liqueur clears before straining. Straining too early leaves it cloudy.

Swap the coriander

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, brandy, sugar, almond, cinnamon. 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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