Why it works: Sugar and plum 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 ↓
Plum Sweetmeats
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Make a syrup by boiling 1½ cups of water with 2 pounds of sugar until skimmed and boiling.
Cook the plums
Add the plums and boil slowly until clear, keeping covered for the first 15 minutes.
If using small plums, heat them slowly until the skin is tender.
Add an equal weight of sugar and shake the kettle.
Simmer and seal
Simmer slowly for 20 minutes, then transfer to glass cans and seal tightly.
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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Sugar + plumtop 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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it by drawing out moisture.
- Plums
- Provide the fruit, which softens and turns clear as it cooks in the syrup.
The step that matters
Boil the plums slowly and keep them covered at first. Gentle heat keeps the fruit whole and stops the skins from splitting. Covering traps steam so the plums soften evenly and the syrup can clarify without the fruit breaking apart.
“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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