Why it works: Quince and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,444 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Preserved Quinces
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the quinces
Peel the quinces.
Core the quinces.
Place the quinces in cold water.
Strain the quinces from the water.
Make the syrup and cook
Prepare a syrup by combining 1 pint of water with 1 pound of sugar for every pound of fruit.
Bring the syrup to a boil.
Add the quinces to the boiling syrup.
Boil until soft.
Continue to boil the syrup down as you would for other preserves.
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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Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,444 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
- Quinces
- Provide the fruit that forms the body and flavour of the preserve.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the preserve and helps it thicken as the syrup reduces.
“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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