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Stewed Evaporated Apricots

A sweet stew of evaporated apricots simmered with sugar and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,630 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Stewed Evaporated Apricots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the apricots thoroughly in several waters.

  2. Soak the apricots in 1 cup of cold water overnight.

Cook

  1. In the morning, cook the apricots in the same soaking water until boiling, then simmer until tender.

  2. Sprinkle the sugar over the apricots and cook slowly for 10 minutes.

Thicken and serve

  1. Drain the apricots, return the juice to the heat, and boil until slightly thickened.

  2. Pour the thickened juice over the apricots and let cool.

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. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Evaporated apricots
Provide the main fruit, softening during soaking and simmering to become tender.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, dissolved in the cooking juice, helps it thicken slightly.

The step that matters

Boiling the drained juice until slightly thickened. Reducing the juice concentrates its sugars and natural pectin, so it thickens into a syrup. Boiling too briefly leaves it thin, while overcooking makes it sticky.

“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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