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Dessert

Quinces in Syrup

Quinces are peeled, sliced, boiled, soaked in sulphite solution, packed in jars, and processed in boiling water to preserve them in syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Quince and syrup work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 80 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Quinces in Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quinces

  1. Peel, slice, and core the quinces.

  2. Place them in cold water and heat slowly until just boiling.

  3. Remove the slices with a skimmer and soak them in a bucket of cold water with 1 ounce of sulphite of soda for every 6 gallons.

Pack and process

  1. Pack the quinces into cans or jars and cover with syrup.

  2. Process quart cans for 20 minutes, pint cans for 15 minutes, quart jars for 15 minutes, and pint jars for 12 minutes in boiling water.

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 + syruptop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together80 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

Quinces
Provide the fruit that softens during heating and gives the preserve its flavour and body.
Syrup of required strength
Supplies sweetness and moisture, and helps preserve the fruit in the sealed container.
Sulphite of soda
Helps keep the cut quince slices from browning while they soak.

The step that matters

Soak the slices in sulphite solution right after cutting. Cut quince flesh darkens quickly from enzyme reactions with air. Soaking in the sulphite solution slows this browning, so the slices should go into it promptly and stay submerged.

“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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