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Dessert

Preserved Quinces

A sweet preserve made by boiling quinces with sugar, water, and lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Quince and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 336 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Preserved Quinces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pectin liquid

  1. Pare, core, and quarter the quinces.

  2. Weigh the quinces.

  3. Cover the parings and cores with water in a preserving kettle. Boil for 30 minutes.

  4. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve.

  5. Return the strained liquid to the kettle.

Cook the quinces

  1. Boil the quinces in the liquid a little at a time until tender.

  2. Remove the quinces with a drainer.

  3. If the liquid is scarce, add more water.

  4. Add the sugar to the liquid. Boil for 10 minutes.

  5. Add the quinces to the liquid.

  6. Boil until they change color, about 1 hour and 15 minutes, without stirring. Occasionally slip a silver spoon under the quinces to prevent burning.

Finish and jar

  1. Cut the lemons into thin slices.

  2. Place a slice or two in each jar when filling.

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. Quince + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together336 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,444 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Quinces
The main fruit; it softens and turns color as it cooks slowly in the syrup.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the fruit and give it a thick, glossy set.
Lemons
Add acidity and fresh aroma that brighten the sweet preserve.

The step that matters

Cook the quinces without stirring. Stirring breaks the tender fruit into mush. Sugary syrup also scorches easily on the bottom of the kettle, so lifting the fruit gently with a spoon keeps pieces whole and color even.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon. 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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