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Quince Preserve

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Quince and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 336 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Quince Preserve

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pare and core the quinces, then cut them into halves or quarters.

  2. Soak the quinces in cold water with a little lemon juice to prevent discoloration.

  3. Cook the quinces in boiling water until tender enough to pierce with a fork.

  4. Drain the water and add the peel, cores, and pips back to the water.

  5. Boil the mixture slowly for 30 minutes, then strain through a double layer of cheesecloth.

  6. For every cup of liquid, add one cup of sugar.

  7. If clarifying, add the egg white and shell, then follow directions for clarifying syrup.

  8. Bring the syrup to a boil, add the quinces, and cook gently until the fruit is preserved.

  9. Fill dry, sterilized jars with the preserve and screw the lids down tightly.

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 + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together336 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Swap the quince

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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