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Dessert

Spiced Pears

A preserved pear dish flavored with sugar, vinegar, ginger, lemon rind, cloves, allspice, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Spiced Pears

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Cut the pears in half, then remove the seeds and peel the pears.

Cook and serve

  1. In a large pot, combine sugar, vinegar, ginger, lemon rind, cloves, allspice, and cinnamon.

  2. Add the pears to the pot and bring to a boil.

  3. Simmer until the pears are tender, about 30 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool before serving.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Pears
Form the bulk of the dish and soften into tender fruit during simmering.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and helps build a thick, syrupy preserving liquid.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the fruit.
Ginger root
Contributes a warm, pungent aroma to the syrup.
Whole cloves
Add a strong, warm spice aroma to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Simmering until tender. Simmering too briefly leaves the pears firm, while over-long cooking can break them down. Watching for tenderness rather than only the clock keeps the fruit intact and evenly flavoured.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Quincefits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, sugar, vinegar, ginger, clove, allspice, cinnamon. 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.

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