Why it works: Quince and brandy work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 91 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Brandy Quinces
Ingredients
Directions
Boil quinces in water until tender.
Drain the quinces well.
Place quinces in a pot with sugar and simmer for 15 minutes to allow syrup to penetrate.
Transfer quinces to jars, dividing the syrup among them.
Once cool, fill jars with brandy and cork them.
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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Quince + brandytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together91 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,444 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar and brandy 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 quince
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Quincethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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