Why it works: Guava and sugar work together. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 115 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Stewed Whole Guavas
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove the skins from the guavas and pierce each fruit with a fork.
Prepare a boiling syrup by combining 2 parts water and 1 part sugar.
Cook
Drop the guavas into the boiling syrup and cook until tender, being careful not to break them.
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.
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Guava + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together115 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
- Guavas
- Provide the fruit that softens and absorbs the sweet syrup as it cooks.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and helps the fruit hold its flavour during cooking.
The step that matters
Cooking the guavas in the syrup. Guavas must be simmered gently until tender; a rough boil can break the soft fruit apart. Piercing the skin lets syrup penetrate so the fruit cooks and sweetens evenly.
“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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