Why it works: Raisin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
English Claret
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the raisins
Chop the Malaga raisins very small.
Combine every pound of raisins with 4 cups of water in an open vessel covered with a cloth.
Let it stand for 7 to 9 days, stirring daily.
Ferment and clarify
Strain the liquid from the raisins and transfer it to a seasoned barrel.
Add 2 cups of cold elderberry juice to every gallon of liquid.
Seal the barrel and let it stand for 6 weeks.
Once fine, transfer to another vessel and add ½ pound of sugar for every gallon.
When perfectly clear, bottle the wine.
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.
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Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Malaga raisins
- Provide the sugars and fruit flavour that the fermentation turns into wine.
- Cold elderberry juice
- Adds fruit colour and flavour to the wine.
- Moist sugar
- Adds sweetness and feeds the yeast to help the wine finish fermenting.
The step that matters
Sealing the barrel and waiting six weeks. Once the liquid is sealed, fermentation must proceed without air contact, and the wine needs time to settle and clear. Rushing this stage leaves cloudiness and unstable wine.
“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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