Why it works: Plum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Dried Plums
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the plums
Stem and stone the plums, ensuring they are free from specks.
Scald and dry
Place part of the plums in a porcelain kettle with sugar and heat slowly to extract the juice.
Scald the plums thoroughly without boiling, then remove the fruit with a coarse wire skimmer.
Spread the plums carefully on platters.
Scald the remaining plums in the same syrup.
After removing them, boil the syrup for 5 to 10 minutes and pour it over the plums.
Dry the plums quickly as convenient.
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.
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Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,313 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Plums
- Form the main body of the prunes, which dry down into the chewy, concentrated fruit.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and syrup, and helps preserve the plums as they dry.
The step that matters
Scald without boiling. Holding the plums just below a boil softens the skins and draws out juice gently. Boiling would split the skins and leave the fruit mushy rather than firm enough to dry well.
“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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