Why it works: Grape and brandy work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 711 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Be Andy Grapes
Ingredients
Directions
Remove grapes from the stem and rinse them gently in fresh water.
Pierce each grape in two or three places with a pin.
Extract juice from additional grapes and mix it with brandy.
Drain the washed grapes and pat them dry with a clean cloth.
Place the grapes in jars and cover them with the brandy and grape juice mixture.
Add sugar or syrup to taste, and any additional flavoring if desired.
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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Grape + brandytop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together711 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,490 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Brandy and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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
Swap the grape
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (brandy, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Grapethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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