Skip to main content
Dessert

Grape Preserve

A preserve made from grapes, cloves, sugar, and vinegar, boiled and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and grape are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,675 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Grape Preserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grapes

  1. Pulp the grapes.

  2. Boil the skins until tender.

  3. Cook the pulp until soft, then strain through a sieve.

Make the jam

  1. Combine the pulp with the skins.

  2. Add the cloves, sugar, and vinegar.

  3. Boil thoroughly, then seal.

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. Clove + grapetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Grape + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  4. Clove + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Grapes
Provide the pulp and skins that form the body and flavour of the jam.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the jam by binding water.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps preserve the jam.
Cloves
Add a warm, aromatic spice flavour.

The step that matters

Boil thoroughly, then seal. The jam must reach a full boil so that enough water evaporates and the sugar and acid can preserve it. Under-boiling leaves the jam wet and prone to spoiling once sealed.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Peppermintfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grape, sugar, vinegar. 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.

More grape jam recipes

Green 4 See all 64 →

You might also like

Clove CakeClove Cake53 recipesGrape SherbetGrape Sherbet32 recipesGrapefruit MarmaladeGrapefruit Marmalade16 recipesGrape ButterGrape Butter9 recipes