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Dessert

Date Fkitteks

A dessert of stewed dates in weak syrup flavored with brandy, topped with pounded sugar and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Date Fkitteks

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stew the dates in weak syrup flavored with brandy.

  2. Lay the dates in a dish.

  3. Sprinkle with pounded sugar and a little lemon juice.

  4. Finish as per the instructions for recipe No. 407.

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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Dates + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Dates + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together985 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

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

Dates
Provide the main sweetness and a soft, chewy texture once stewed.
Weak syrup
Keeps the dates moist and sweet while they stew and soften.
Brandy
Adds a warm aroma to the syrup that the dates absorb.
Pounded sugar
Adds sweetness to the surface of the dates.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar and dates.

The step that matters

Stew the dates gently in the flavored syrup. Gentle stewing softens the dates and lets them absorb the syrup and brandy. Too much heat can break the fruit apart and make the texture mushy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against dates, syrup, brandy, 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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