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Dessert

Apple Ginger, or Imitation Preserved Ginger

A preserved apple confection flavored with ginger, lemon, and gin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Apple Ginger, or Imitation Preserved Ginger

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 apples

  1. Weigh and cut the apples into irregular lumps after peeling and coring.

  2. Make a syrup by boiling 2 pounds of sugar in 1 pint of water.

  3. Pour the boiling syrup over the apples and let them sit covered for 2-3 days in an earthen vessel.

Make the preserve

  1. Add the lemon rinds, lemon juice, gin or whisky, 3 pounds of sugar, and a spice bag with bruised ginger and cayenne.

  2. Boil gently for about 1 hour, ensuring the apples remain soft and clear.

Finish

  1. Cool and cover the mixture.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Apple + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Form the bulk of the preserve and, as they cook down, supply pectin for a soft set.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, at high concentration, helps preserve the fruit.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the flavour and helps the preserve set.
Ginger
Provides a warm, pungent aroma; the spice bag keeps pieces out of the finished preserve.

The step that matters

Boil gently. Vigorous boiling breaks down the apple lumps and clouds the syrup. A gentle simmer keeps the pieces whole, soft and clear while the sugar concentrates.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, gin, ginger, pepper):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, gin, ginger, pepper. 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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