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Dessert

Quince Preserves

A preserve made from quince and orange, sweetened with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Quince and orange work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 152 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Quince Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Pare, core, and cut quinces into eighths.

  2. Simmer the cores and parings in water to cover for about 3 hours, then strain.

Make the preserve

  1. Slice the oranges very thin, removing seeds, and add them to a saucepan with the quinces and enough water to cover.

  2. Alternatively, place in a covered baking dish and bake slowly until tender.

  3. Add 2 cups of sugar for each pound of fruit to the strained water from the parings.

  4. Cook for 5 minutes, then add the quince and orange mixture.

  5. Simmer slowly for 1 hour.

Jar

  1. Transfer to small jars and seal.

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 + orangetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

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

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

Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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
Their natural pectin helps the preserve set and gives it a firm, jelly-like body.
Oranges
Their thin slices add acidity and a bright citrus aroma that balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, at this concentration, helps preserve the fruit and set the texture.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly for 1 hour. A gentle simmer lets the fruit become tender and release its pectin without breaking into mush or scorching the sugar at the bottom of the pan.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, sugar. 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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