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Pears Poached in White Wine

A vegetable peeler or paring knife is handy for removing long strips of citrus zest. Be careful to remove only the thin, colored layer of the peel, leaving the bitter white pith behind. If some of the pith is attached, you can easily scrape it away with a knife. You can then cut the strips lengthwise to the desired width.

By williamssonoma · From Open Recipes · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and pear share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 60 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4.

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By williamssonoma. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. White wine + peartop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together60 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cinnamon + peartop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Ginger + peartop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, pear):

  1. Applebetter flavor fit
  2. Plumbetter flavor fit
  3. Peachbetter flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, pear. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).