Skip to main content
Dessert

To Pickle Pears Whole

A method for pickling whole pears in a sweet and vinegar syrup with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

To Pickle Pears Whole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pears

  1. Peel the pears and cut out the ends, leaving the stems intact.

  2. Place the pears in a preserving kettle with the water and boil until tender, then lay them out on a dish.

Make the syrup

  1. Add sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger to the juice and boil for 5 minutes, skimming as needed.

  2. Add the pears back to the syrup and boil until it thickens.

Pack and store

  1. Transfer the pears to a jar and pour the syrup over them.

  2. If the syrup thins after a few days, boil it again and pour it over the pears.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pear + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together600 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Pear + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together452 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pears
Provide the fruit that becomes tender and absorbs the flavoured syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and thickens it as water evaporates during boiling.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the syrup a sharp, tangy balance against the sweetness.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma that infuses into the syrup and pears.
Whole cloves
Add a pungent, warm aroma that infuses into the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until it thickens. As water evaporates, sugar concentration rises and the syrup becomes thicker. Boiling too briefly leaves it thin and watery, which is why the record suggests reboiling it if it thins later.

Swap the pear

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, clove, ginger):

  1. Quincefits about as well
  2. Orangefits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Pearthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, clove, ginger. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes