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Dessert

Medlars in Syrup

Medlars preserved in successive boiling syrups with alum and sulphite of soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,179 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Medlars in Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Pierce the medlars several times with a copper needle from stem to bottom.

  2. Soak the medlars in water with 1 ounce of alum for 1 hour.

  3. Rinse and blanch the medlars in water with 1 ounce of sulphite of soda.

  4. Boil the medlars slowly until softened, then refresh in cold running water.

  5. Allow the medlars to dry for 1 hour and place them in stone jars.

Syrup and sealing

  1. Cover the medlars with hot boiling syrup at 20° Beaume and let stand overnight.

  2. Drain the syrup, reboil it at 25°, and pour it over the fruit again.

  3. After 24 hours, drain the medlars and place them in cans or bottles.

  4. Dip the medlars in boiling syrup at 22° and seal.

  5. Process quart cans for 10 minutes, pint cans for 6 minutes, quart jars for 5 minutes, and pint jars for 3 minutes in boiling water.

  6. Optionally, color the last syrup with orange aniline color to improve appearance.

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. Syrup + orangetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,179 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Medlar + orangetop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together0 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Medlar + syruptop 65% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together0 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

Medlar fruit
Forms the body of the preserve and absorbs the syrup as the main ingredient.
Alum
Firms the fruit tissue so it holds its shape during soaking and cooking.
Sulphite of soda
Helps preserve the fruit's pale color during blanching.
Hot boiling syrup
Sweetens the fruit and, at rising concentrations, draws out moisture and preserves it.

The step that matters

Boil the medlars slowly until softened. Boiling too hard can break the fruit apart, while under-softened fruit stays firm and does not absorb syrup well. Slow heat softens the tissue evenly.

Swap the orange

The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (medlar, syrup):

  1. Quincefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against medlar, syrup. 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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