Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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 ↓
Prune Shape
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the prunes
Stone the prunes and break about half the stones to blanch the kernels.
Wash the prunes and place them in a saucepan with the claret, sugar, lemon rind, and lemon juice.
Cook and set
Simmer the prunes until they are tender.
Dissolve the gelatine in the water and add it to the prunes.
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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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon 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
- Prunes
- Form the main body of the shape and give fruit flavour and softness when simmered.
- Gelatine
- Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable shape as it cools.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and balances the tartness of the claret and lemon.
- Claret
- Adds wine flavour and liquid that softens and colours the prunes.
The step that matters
Dissolving the gelatine. Gelatine must be fully dissolved before it is added to the prunes, since undissolved granules leave gritty spots and it will not set evenly through the mixture.
“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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