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Dessert

Bananas, Compote of

A chilled compote of sliced bananas in thin syrup, optionally flavored with liqueur, citrus juice, rind, rose water, or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and rose are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,174 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Bananas, Compote of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the ripe bananas.

  2. Pour the thin syrup over the banana slices.

  3. Add liqueur, lemon juice, orange juice, or rose water if desired.

  4. If bananas are not quite ripe, simmer the slices in the syrup for 1-2 minutes.

Chill and serve

  1. Chill the dish until the fruit is cold.

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 + rosetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Banana + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  3. Rose + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together560 recipes

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

  4. Banana + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,134 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Syrup + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Bananas
Provide the main fruit flavour and a soft, creamy texture once cooked or chilled.
Thin syrup
Adds sweetness and moisture, coating the fruit and keeping the slices from drying.

The step that matters

Simmering unripe bananas. Underripe bananas are firmer and starchier, so a brief simmer in the syrup softens them and draws out sweetness. Simmering too long turns the slices mushy and can make them fall apart.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (banana, syrup, rose, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, syrup, rose, brandy. 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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