Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Compote of Cranberries
Ingredients
Directions
Drain the cranberries in a sieve.
Boil the cranberry juice with cochineal, sugar, and lemon juice.
Serve the compote with its own syrup.
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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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
- Cranberries
- Provide the tart fruit flavour and body of the compote.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the compote and thickens its syrup as it boils down.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the tartness.
- Cochineal
- Adds a deep red colour to the compote.
The step that matters
Boiling the cranberry juice with sugar. Boiling concentrates the sugar and pectin in the juice, so the syrup thickens as it cools. Boiling too briefly leaves a thin syrup, while boiling too long can make the compote stiff.
“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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