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Drink

English Claret

A fermented beverage made from water, cider, and bruised Malaga raisins, left to sit warm for two weeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cider and raisin work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 588 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

English Claret

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine water, cider, and bruised raisins in a large container.

  2. Cover it tightly and let it sit in a warm place for two weeks.

  3. Stir the mixture daily.

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. Cider + raisintop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together588 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Malaga raisins
Provide sugars and fruit flavor that feed the fermentation and give the wine body.
Cider
Supplies sugars and fruit flavor that yeast converts into alcohol.

The step that matters

Keeping the container covered while it sits. A tight cover limits contact with air, which helps keep unwanted microbes and oxidation from spoiling the fermenting liquid over the two weeks.

“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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