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Apples a LA Cremone a Beautiful Dish

Apples à la Cremone is a preserved apple dish with sugar, lemon peel, and cider, served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Apples a LA Cremone a Beautiful Dish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and cut the apples into oblong pieces.

  2. Strew the sugar and lemon peel over the apples in a bowl and cover.

  3. Let the mixture sit until the next day.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the apples in a preserving pan, add the sugar, lemon peel, and cider.

  2. Simmer gently, removing the apples as they become clear.

  3. Once cooled, arrange the apples on a small oval dish and place the lemon peel on top.

  4. Pour the syrup into the middle and serve with cream.

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 + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + cidertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together986 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Apples
Provide the main body and texture of the dish as they soften and turn clear in the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and, with the apples, forms the thick syrup that candies the fruit.
Cider
Adds liquid and a light acidity to the syrup during simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer gently, removing the apples as they become clear. High heat can break the apple pieces apart and make the syrup cloudy or scorched. Gentle simmering lets each piece cook through evenly, and removing them as they turn translucent prevents overcooking while the syrup thickens.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, cider. 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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