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
Stem, stone, and clean the plums.
Place some plums in a porcelain kettle with sugar and heat slowly to extract juice.
Scald the plums thoroughly without boiling.
Remove the fruit with a coarse wire skimmer and spread on platters.
Scald the remaining plums in the same syrup.
Boil the syrup for 5-10 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
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