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A Good Blackberry Cordial for Medicinal Use

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Good Blackberry Cordial for Medicinal Use

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mash the blackberries and stew them for a few minutes.

  2. When cool, strain the mixture through cheesecloth.

  3. To every quart of juice, add ½ pound of granulated sugar, nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon.

  4. Boil all ingredients together for 15 minutes.

  5. When cool, stir in ½ pint of French brandy.

  6. Seal the cordial in bottles.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cinnamon + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Clovefits about as well
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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