Why it works: Sugar and pear are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,079 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Canned Pears
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Prepare a syrup by combining 1 pint of water and 6 tablespoons of sugar in a pot.
While the syrup heats, peel the pears and place them in a pan of clear water.
Cook the pears
Once the syrup reaches a fast boil, carefully add the pears and boil until they are clear and easily pierced with a fork.
Get the cans ready and pack
Have the cans ready by rolling them in hot water.
Pack the pears into the cans and fill them to overflowing with the scalding syrup, keeping the syrup on the fire.
Seal the cans.
Tougher pears
For tougher pears, boil them in water until tender, then add them to the hot syrup and boil for 10 minutes before canning.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Sugar + peartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,079 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pears
- The fruit that softens in the syrup while holding its shape and absorbing its sweetness.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and forms the syrup that flavors the fruit and helps it keep.
The step that matters
Boiling the pears until just pierced. Pears that boil too long turn soft and mushy in the syrup, while underdone fruit stays hard and tough. Testing with a fork shows when the flesh is tender but still holding its shape.
“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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