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Dessert

Pear Conserve

A sweet preserve made from pears, sugar, citrus, raisins, and nuts, simmered until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Pear Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the pears and cover them with sugar.

  2. Let them stand overnight.

  3. Chop the oranges, lemon, and raisins.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil the pears, oranges, lemon, and raisins together until thick.

  2. Add the chopped nuts and mix well.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Pear + orangetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Orange + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Pear + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together942 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Pears
Provide the main fruit body and pectin that help the preserve set as it thickens.
Sugar
Draws moisture out of the pears and, with boiling, helps thicken and preserve the fruit.
Oranges
Add acidity and citrus aroma that balance the sweetness of the sugar.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and supports setting.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Chopped nuts
Add crunch and texture contrast to the soft preserve.

The step that matters

Boil until thick. Sugar and fruit must be cooked long enough for water to evaporate and pectin to set; undercooking leaves a runny preserve that may spoil sooner.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, sugar, orange, lemon, raisin):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, sugar, orange, lemon, raisin. 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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