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Confiture d’Abricots. — Preserved Apricots.

A preserve made by cooking apricots with sugar until the moisture evaporates.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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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 ↓

Confiture d’Abricots. — Preserved Apricots.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Weigh the cut apricots and add 14 pounds of sugar for every 40 pounds of fruit.

  2. If using brown sugar, clarify it if it is not very fine.

  3. Break the stones from the apricots and boil the kernels in water to remove the skin.

Cook

  1. Combine the sugar or syrup with the fruit in a pan.

  2. Stir constantly to prevent sticking.

  3. Cook until the humidity has completely evaporated.

  4. When the preserve is nearly done, add the kernels and stir well to distribute evenly.

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. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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, flavour and pectin that give the preserve its body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the fruit by binding water, thickening the mixture.

The step that matters

Stir constantly while cooking. Sugar and fruit sugars scorch easily on the bottom of the pan, and burnt sugar gives bitter flavour. Constant stirring spreads heat and keeps the preserve from sticking as water evaporates and the mixture thickens.

“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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