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 ↓
White Apricots
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the apricots
Take white apricots that are not quite ripe and cut them in half.
Remove the stones and peel them very thin.
Place them in boiling water, ensuring they do not boil.
Remove from water and drain.
Make the syrup and preserve
Boil the apricots in clarified sugar.
Leave them in a dish until the next day.
Drain again and boil the syrup.
Once cold, pour the syrup over the fruit.
On the third day, put and cover them for future use.
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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Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- White apricots
- Provide the fruit that is softened and preserved in the sugar syrup.
- Sugar
- Forms the syrup that sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it.
The step that matters
Place them in boiling water, ensuring they do not boil.. The water must stay just below a boil so the apricots loosen their skins and soften without breaking apart or cooking unevenly.
“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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