Skip to main content
Dessert

Pickled Pears

A pickled pear recipe using vinegar, sugar, spices, and Seckel pears.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Pickled Pears

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pickled Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, mace, cloves, mustard seed, and ginger.

  2. Add the pears and cover the pot.

  3. Simmer until the pears are tender.

Finish and seal

  1. Remove the pears and cook the syrup down until thick.

  2. Pour the syrup over the pears and seal in glass jars.

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.

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.

  1. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + peartop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together600 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Pears
Provide the fruit body that softens during simmering and absorbs the spiced syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and, as it thickens, helps preserve the fruit and give it body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the pears in the syrup.
Ground cinnamon
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the syrup.
Ground cloves
Adds strong aromatic spice notes that flavour the syrup.

The step that matters

Cook the syrup down until thick. The syrup must reduce enough after the pears are removed so it thickens and coats the fruit. Too little reduction leaves a thin, watery pickle that may not keep well in the jars.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, clove, mustard, ginger, pear):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, clove, mustard, ginger, pear. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More pickled pears recipes

Sweet 11and Peaches 5 See all 31 →

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes