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To Preserve Siberian Crab Apples

A preserve made by simmering Siberian crab apples in a clear syrup of water, sugar, orange peel, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

To Preserve Siberian Crab Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the water and sugar together to make a clear syrup.

  2. Skim the syrup and let it cool.

Cook the crab apples

  1. Pare the crab apples.

  2. Add the crab apples to the syrup and simmer slowly until tender.

Finish and flavour

  1. Carefully remove each apple and pour the syrup over them when slightly cooled.

  2. Add the boiled orange and lemon peels to the 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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  3. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  4. Crab + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together387 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Sugar and apple barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Siberian crab apples
Supply the fruit and natural pectin that help the preserve hold its shape and set.
Refined sugar
Sweetens the preserve, thickens the syrup and helps preserve the fruit.
Orange peel
Adds a citrus aroma and a bright flavour note to the syrup.
Lemon peel
Adds a fresh citrus aroma and a touch of brightness to the syrup.

The step that matters

Simmer the apples slowly until tender. Gentle heat softens the fruit while keeping the apples whole. Rapid boiling breaks the skins and flesh apart and can make the syrup cloudy.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, crab, orange, lemon. 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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