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Cranberry Relish

A sweet and tart relish made from cranberries, raisins, orange peel, orange juice, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,684 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cranberry Relish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop cranberries, raisins, and orange peel together.

  2. Add orange juice and sugar to the mixture.

Cook and store

  1. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 3 hours.

  2. Bottle and seal the relish.

Serve

  1. Serve as a meat relish, great with chicken or game.

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 + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Cranberries
Provide the tart base and bulk of the relish.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture that balances the tartness.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the relish and helps preserve it during long simmering.
Orange peel
Adds aromatic oils and a bitter citrus note.
Orange juice
Adds acidity and liquid that helps the fruit soften while simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer for 3 hours. Long, gentle simmering lets the cranberries break down and the sugar concentrate into a thick relish. Too little cooking leaves it runny, and a hard boil can scorch the sugar on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar. 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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