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Dessert

Spiced Fruits

A preserved fruit mixture flavored with vinegar, ginger, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, mace, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Fruits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the fruit by washing and cutting as needed.

  2. In a kettle, combine the fruit and sugar.

Cook

  1. Add 20 pints of previously cooked and strained 60‑grain vinegar.

  2. Stir in 10 oz of sliced green ginger root, 3 oz of whole cloves, 6 oz of whole allspice, 6 oz of Saigon cinnamon, and 2 oz of whole mace.

  3. Cook the mixture over heat until it reaches a boiling point, then simmer until the fruit is tender.

Jar

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pear + plumtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pear + quincetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together133 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 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

Fruit
Provides the bulk and main flavour of the preserve as it softens during simmering.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the preserve body and a set-friendly texture.
60 grain vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the finished product.

The step that matters

Simmering until the fruit is tender. Cooking too briefly leaves fruit firm and undercooked, while overcooking breaks it down unevenly. Tender fruit absorbs the spices and vinegar evenly, and the cooked mixture is what makes the sealed jars keep.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, plum, quince, vinegar, ginger, clove, allspice. 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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