Skip to main content
Dessert

Compote of Dried Prunes

A sweet compote made from dried prunes simmered with wine, lemon zest, sugar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Compote of Dried Prunes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prunes

  1. Wash the prunes in cold water.

  2. Place them in a saucepan and cover with water.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

  4. Drain the prunes in a sieve.

Make the compote

  1. Return the prunes to the saucepan with wine, lemon zest, sugar, and water.

  2. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer until the syrup thickens.

  3. Pour the compote into a bowl and let it cool before serving.

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. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Red wine + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together779 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Red wine + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together864 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Dried prunes
Soften during simmering and form the body of the compote.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the syrup thicken as it reduces.
White or red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the syrup.

The step that matters

Simmer until the syrup thickens. Cooking covered and then letting the liquid reduce sets the syrup's consistency. Too little simmering leaves it thin, while overcooking can make the prunes fall apart and the syrup overly sticky as it concentrates.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red wine, 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes