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Dessert

Emergency Preserves

A preserve made by simmering raisins in water, sweetened with sugar, optionally flavored with figs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and fig work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 737 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Emergency Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the raisins thoroughly.

Cook

  1. Simmer the raisins in a little water for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. Sweeten slightly to taste.

  3. Add a few figs to improve the flavor, if desired.

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. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + figtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,241 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Provide the main body and natural sweetness as they soften and release their sugars during simmering.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the concentrated fruit flavor.

The step that matters

Simmering the raisins in a little water. A long, gentle simmer softens the raisins and concentrates their flavor. Because little water is used, it can scorch or stick to the pan if the heat is too high or the water runs low, so keep the heat low and check it often.

Swap the fig

The recipe marks fig as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Datesfits less well
  4. Applefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, 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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