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Dessert

Pear Pickle

A pickled pear recipe using cider vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pear Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the blossom end from the pears and prick them with a fork.

  2. In a pot, combine cider vinegar, sugar, allspice, cinnamon, and cloves; bring to a boil.

Cook and jar

  1. Add the pears to the boiling mixture and cook until tender.

  2. Seal the pears in jars while hot.

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

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Pears
Form the main body of the pickle and soften into tender, syrup-soaked fruit during cooking.
Cider vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the flavor and helps keep the pickle stable.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the syrup.
Cinnamon
Adds sweet, woody aroma and warmth to the syrup.
Cloves
Adds strong, pungent aroma and warmth to the syrup.

The step that matters

Cook the pears until just tender. Pears keep softening in the hot syrup after they leave the heat. Overcooking breaks down the flesh into mush, while stopping at tender keeps their shape and texture.

Swap the pear

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Quincefits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Pearthe original

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