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Dessert

Spiced Grapes

A sweet and spicy grape preserve made with grapes, brown sugar, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Grapes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grapes

  1. Press the pulp of the grapes out of the skins.

  2. Boil the pulp until the seeds loosen.

  3. Pass the mixture through a colander to separate the seeds.

  4. Weigh the pulp and skins together.

Cook the spiced grapes

  1. In a pot, combine the pulp, skins, brown sugar, vinegar, salt, pepper, cloves, cinnamon, and allspice. Mix thoroughly and boil until somewhat thickened, stirring to prevent burning.

  2. Serve with meats.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Grapes
Provide the fruit base, with pulp and skins supplying body and flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the mixture thicken as it cooks down.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and sharpens the flavour.

The step that matters

Boil until somewhat thickened, stirring to prevent burning. Sugar-rich mixtures scorch on the bottom of the pot as water evaporates and sugars concentrate. Frequent stirring prevents burning and lets the mixture thicken evenly.

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, pepper, clove, cinnamon, allspice):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, pepper, clove, cinnamon, allspice. 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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