Name: Sweetmeat Preserves
Ingredients: Porcelain or brass kettle; Sugar (cut or loaf); Water; Fruit (peaches, pears, quinces, damsons, blue plums, cherries)

Why it works: Pear and plum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 245 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Sweetmeat Preserves

Ingredients

Porcelain or brass kettle
Sugar (cut or loaf)
Water
Fruit (peaches, pears, quinces, damsons, blue plums, cherries)

Directions

Scour the brass kettle with sand, then with salt and vinegar, and scald it.
Combine sugar and water in the kettle to make syrup.
Peel the fruit and soak it in cold water to prevent darkening until ready to use.
Boil the fruit quickly in the syrup for a short time, then remove and let it cool.
Repeat the boiling process with the cooled fruit.
Use cut sugar for clear preserves and brown sugar for dark jams.
Ensure fruit is not over-ripe; slit damsons and blue plums lengthwise before preserving.
Stone cherries before preserving.
Cover preserves with a paper dipped in brandy to help preserve them.
Store preserves in glass jars with screw tops for easy inspection.
If preserves dry out, place the jar in a pot of cold water and gradually bring to a boil.
If preserves ferment, reboil with more sugar.

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.

Pear + plumtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Peach + plumtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together163 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pear + quincetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together133 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Peach + peartop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together114 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Quince + plumtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together92 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).