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Peach Conserve

A sweet preserve made from peaches, oranges, lemon, sugar, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Peach Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Blanch, peel, and slice the peaches.

  2. Squeeze the juice and pulp from the oranges.

  3. Chop the rind finely.

Cook the preserve

  1. In a kettle, combine the peaches, orange juice, and chopped rind.

  2. Weigh the mixture.

  3. Add 1 pound of sugar for every 1 pound of fruit.

  4. Cook until clear, stirring frequently.

  5. Add lemon juice.

  6. Add chopped nuts.

  7. Cook for 5 minutes.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the conserve and seal when cold.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Peach + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together385 recipes

    Shared aroma: pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Peach + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together947 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

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

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

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

Peaches
Provide the bulk of the fruit and body for the preserve.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and helps it set and keep.
Oranges
Add juice and rind that contribute acidity and aroma.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and supports setting.
Nuts
Add crunch and texture to the finished preserve.

The step that matters

Cook until clear, stirring frequently. Sugar dissolves and the fruit softens as the mixture thickens. Stirring prevents the sugar and fruit from scorching on the bottom of the kettle, which would give a burnt taste.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, orange, lemon, 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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