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Dessert

Of Plums

A preserved plum recipe using boiling water, suet, and brown paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and mutton work together. They rank in the top 32% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Of Plums

Ingredients

Directions

Pack the fruit

  1. Pick the fruit into clean, dry stone jars, discarding any broken or blemished ones.

  2. Pour boiling water over the plums until it stands 1 inch above the fruit.

  3. Cut a piece of paper to fit inside the jar.

  4. Pour melted mutton suet over the paper.

  5. Cover the jar with brown paper.

Store

  1. Store the jar in a dry, cool place.

Open and serve

  1. Remove the suet.

  2. Pour off the water.

  3. Mix the jelly at the bottom with the fruit.

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. Plum + muttontop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together22 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Plums
The main food being preserved; its juices form the jelly that settles at the bottom of the jar.
Mutton suet
Melted fat that seals the surface, keeping air away from the fruit during storage.

The step that matters

Pouring the melted mutton suet over the paper. The suet must cover the paper fully so no air reaches the fruit. Air exposure lets mould and spoilage start, so a gap in the seal can ruin the preserve.

“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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