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Spiced Grapes

A preserve made by cooking grape pulp with sugar, vinegar, and spices, then boiling with skins and jarred.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Grapes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grapes

  1. Pulp the grapes.

  2. Cook the pulp and strain it through a sieve.

  3. Boil the skins until tender.

Cook the spiced fruit

  1. Add the strained pulp to the boiled skins.

  2. Stir in the sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves.

  3. Boil for about 30 minutes.

Jar

  1. Pour into glass jars.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Grape + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Grapes
Provide the main fruit flavor and the body of the spread.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it concentrates during boiling, helps thicken and preserve the mixture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the fruit.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma.
Allspice
Adds warm, peppery aroma.
Cloves
Adds strong, pungent aroma.

The step that matters

Boil for about 30 minutes. Boiling evaporates water and concentrates the sugar and fruit pectin, which thickens the mixture. Boiling too briefly leaves it thin and runny, while boiling too long can scorch the sugar and make it overly stiff once cool.

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, allspice, clove):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, allspice, clove. 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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