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Drink

French Parfait Amour, or Perfect Love

A French liqueur made from cedrat or lemon rinds, cochineal, 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

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

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.

  3. Pour the syrup into the brandy mixture.

  4. Add cinnamon and coriander seeds.

  5. Dissolve roche alum and crystal mineral in hot water.

  6. Pour off half of the clear liquid into the mixture.

Rest and strain

  1. Let the liquor stand for 6 days.

  2. Finally, 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

Cedrat or lemon rinds
Provide the characteristic citrus aroma and flavour that the liquor is built around.
Brandy
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the rinds and spices, and preserves the liquor.
Sugar
Sweetens the liquor and adds body to the finished syrup.
Cochineal
Gives the liquor its red colour.
Bitter almonds
Contribute a nutty, bitter almond aroma to the liquor.

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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