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Peaches in Brandy

Peaches in Brandy is a preserved fruit dish where peaches are boiled in syrup and soaked in brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and brandy work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 339 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Peaches in Brandy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Gather peaches while they are still hard.

  2. Rub them with a bit of flannel and prick with a needle.

Make the syrup and cook

  1. Make a syrup by boiling the sugar with water until dissolved.

  2. Boil the peaches in the syrup until tender but not breaking.

  3. Remove the peaches and lay them on platters.

  4. Add 1 pint of brandy to every pint of syrup and pour it hot over the peaches.

Jar and store

  1. Once cooled, place the peaches in jars and seal them.

  2. Store in a cool place.

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. Peach + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together339 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + peachtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches
Form the main fruit, softening into tender pieces when simmered in syrup.
Sugar
Makes the syrup that sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the fruit and contributes its aroma.

The step that matters

Boil the peaches until tender but not breaking. Heat softens the cell walls of the fruit, so overcooking lets the flesh collapse and fall apart. Stopping at tender keeps the peaches whole while they absorb the syrup.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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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