Why it works: Apricot and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,630 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Apricot Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Stone and cut the apricots into pieces.
Prepare a syrup with the sugar, making it more liquid than for other jellies.
Make the jelly
Cook the apricots in the syrup until done.
Place the cooked fruit in a cloth and press out all the juice.
Add the juice to the syrup, which should be strained through a silk sieve.
Mix in the isinglass to thicken the mixture.
Finish the jelly as you would with other jellies.
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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Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,630 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Apricots
- Provide the fruit flavour and the pectin-rich juice that gives the jelly its body.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and helps it set by binding water and firming the gel.
- Isinglass
- Gelatin-like setting agent that thickens the juice into a firm, clear jelly.
The step that matters
Mix in the isinglass. Isinglass must be dissolved fully and mixed evenly into the warm juice before it cools. Undissolved or unevenly distributed isinglass leaves lumps or weak patches, so the jelly will not set uniformly.
“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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