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 Guavas Without Seeds
Ingredients
Directions
Peel the guavas carefully with a silver knife.
Cut them in half lengthwise and remove the seeds with a spoon.
Place the seeds and skins in a saucepan with a little water and simmer.
Cut the guava halves into long strips.
Once the juice is well cooked from the seeds, strain it through a fine mesh.
Sweeten the juice, return it to the stove, and gently drop the guava strips into the hot juice.
Do not stir; press down the syrup and remove any scum.
Simmer until the strips are tender, keeping their shape.
For marmalade, boil until the syrup jellies when dropped on a saucer, adding ¾ as much sugar as the pulp and juice.
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
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