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Drink

Prune, or Raisin Water

A beverage made by boiling prunes or raisins in water, then sweetening and flavoring it to taste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Prune, or Raisin Water

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the prunes or raisins in 3 pints of water for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture and let it cool.

  3. Sweeten and flavor to your taste.

  4. Optionally, add a little sherry wine or brandy.

  5. The leftover fruit can be eaten as is or warmed in syrup.

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. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Prunes or raisins
Simmered in water to release their sweetness and fruit flavor into the liquid.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry. 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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