Name: Cider Pear Sauce
Ingredients: 4 cups boiled cider; 1 cup sugar (optional, for less sour sauce); Pears

Why it works: Cider and pear work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 109 recipes. Both carry ethyl pentanoate, which smells yeast, fruit. The science ↓

Cider Pear Sauce

Ingredients

4 cups boiled cider
1 cup sugar (optional, for less sour sauce)
Pears

Directions

Cook pears in boiled cider until tender.
If desired, add 1 cup of sugar to the cider for a sweeter sauce.

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.

Cider + peartop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together109 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).
Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,147 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + peartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,079 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Cider + sugartop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,308 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + peartop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together73 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Pears: Soften into tender pieces that break down into the sauce's body.
Boiled cider: Provides concentrated apple flavor and tartness, and thickens the sauce as it reduces.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to balance the sour boiled cider, if desired.