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Red Grits

A raspberry-flavored grits dessert served with vanilla cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Raspberry and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 950 recipes. Both carry ethyl benzoate, which smells fruity, sweet. The science ↓

Red Grits

Ingredients

Directions

Make the grits

  1. In a saucepan, combine raspberry juice and water.

  2. Add sugar to taste and cook until the mixture thickens slightly, but not too stiff.

  3. Wet a china dish with cold water and pour the mixture into it.

  4. Allow to cool, then turn out onto a large plate.

Serve

  1. Serve with well-beaten vanilla cream and sugar.

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. Raspberry + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together950 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Raspberry + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,332 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Grits or sago
Starch that thickens the raspberry liquid into a firm, sliceable set.
Raspberry juice
Provides the main flavour and colour of the dish.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the raspberry juice.
Vanilla cream
Adds richness and a cool, creamy contrast to the warm-flavoured fruit.

The step that matters

Cooking until slightly thickened. Grits or sago keep thickening as the mixture cools and sets. Stopping while it is only slightly thick, not stiff, keeps the set soft enough to turn out cleanly without becoming rubbery.

Swap the raspberry

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

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Raspberrythe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vanilla, cream. 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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