Why it works: Apricot and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,630 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Delicious Apricot Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Pare and halve the apricots, removing and cracking the stones.
Blanch and bruise the kernels.
Boil the parings, crushed stones, and skins in double the amount of water needed for the fruit until reduced by half.
Make the jam
Combine 1 pound of apricots, ½ cup of the strained liquid, 1 pound of powdered sugar, and the pounded kernels in a pot.
Set over a brisk fire and stir until the fruit is thoroughly mashed and the mixture has a good consistency.
Store
Pour into a container.
Let it cool.
Sift a little sugar on top.
Cover with a piece of brandy-dipped paper before sealing.
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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Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,630 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Apricots
- Provide the fruit body and flavor that the jam is built around.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the jam and helps preserve it by binding water.
- Apricot kernels
- Add a bitter almond-like aroma to the jam.
The step that matters
Stirring over a brisk fire. Stirring keeps the sugar and fruit from scorching on the bottom of the pot, and the jam must be cooked long enough to thicken as it reduces; too little cooking leaves it runny and prone to spoiling.
“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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