Why it works: Pear and syrup work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 254 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
White Pears, Wet.
Ingredients
Directions
Blanch and peel
Prick the pears all over.
Blanch the pears until a pin can easily pass through them.
Drop the pears into cold water.
Peel the pears very thinly and prick them again to the core.
Soak and syrup
Soak the pears in another pan of cold water, then drain them.
Place the pears into a thin syrup and remove any scum.
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.
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Pear + syruptop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together254 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
- Their flesh softens when blanched, so they take on the syrup and become tender.
- Thin syrup
- Sugar in the syrup sweetens the pears and adds moisture as they cook.
The step that matters
Blanch the pears until a pin can easily pass through them. Blanching softens the fruit gradually. Stopping too early leaves the pears firm at the core, while overcooking turns them mushy and makes them break apart in the syrup.
“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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