Why it works: Apple and quince work together. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓
Apple Preserves
Ingredients
Directions
Choose firm, well-flavored apples.
Add the juice of 1 lemon for every 1½ lbs. of apples, or cut up and add a little quince.
Follow the same process as directed for quinces.
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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Apple + quincetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together506 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Lemon + quincetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together336 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the quince
The recipe marks quince as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, lemon):
- Orangefits better
- Pearfits about as well
- Quincethe original
- Blackberryfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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