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Dessert

Preserved Whole Persimmons

Preserved whole persimmons are layered with sugar and stored in a jar until the sugar dissolves into syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and persimmon work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 75 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Preserved Whole Persimmons

Ingredients

Directions

Layer the jar

  1. Place a thin layer of sugar in the bottom of a jar.

  2. Add a layer of whole ripe persimmons.

  3. Continue layering with sugar and persimmons until the jar is full.

Syrup and store

  1. Allow the sugar to dissolve and form a syrup.

  2. Press the upper fruits down under the syrup or add more syrup if needed.

  3. Seal the jar and store until used.

  4. Drain the syrup before serving the fruits, which will resemble dates in appearance and flavor.

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. Sugar + persimmontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together75 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
Dissolves into a syrup that draws moisture out of the fruit and preserves it.
Whole ripe persimmons
The fruit being preserved; it softens and turns sweet and date-like as it sits in syrup.

The step that matters

Pressing the upper fruits under the syrup. Fruit exposed above the syrup can dry out or spoil, while fruit kept submerged stays moist and preserves evenly. Adding syrup when the level drops keeps everything covered.

“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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