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Jam, Imitation

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and fig work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 318 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Jam, Imitation

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Grate the lemon rind and squeeze the juice into the treacle.

  2. Beat in the egg.

  3. Chop the prunes, dates, and figs very small.

  4. Mix in the chopped fruit and a little spice.

  5. Add enough bread to give the mixture consistency.

  6. If desired, substitute some treacle with honey, warming them together if thick.

  7. For an alternative, add grated apple and cooked carrot, omitting the lemon, and use treacle, bread, and egg.

  8. To omit the egg, use more bread.

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. Dates + figtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Fig + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together238 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + carrottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

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

  4. Fig + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Bread + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Swap the fig

The recipe marks fig as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, dates, bread, egg, apple, carrot):

  1. Figthe original
  2. Orangefits about as well
  3. Pearfits less well
  4. Apricotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, dates, bread, egg, apple, carrot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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