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Spiced Peaches or Pears

A preserved fruit dish of peaches simmered in a spiced vinegar and sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 280 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Peaches or Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar, vinegar, and cloves in a pot and bring to a boil.

  2. Pour the boiling mixture over the peaches.

Repeat and finish

  1. Repeat this process for three consecutive days.

  2. On the last day, add the peaches to the syrup a few at a time and let them just boil up.

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.

  1. Peach + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together280 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Peach + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together348 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches
Provide the fruit base, giving the bulk, juiciness and fruit flavor of the dish.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and draws moisture out of the fruit to form a thick syrup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sweetness and balances the syrup.
Whole cloves or cinnamon
Add warm spiced aroma that infuses into the syrup and the peaches.

The step that matters

Adding the peaches on the last day. Add the peaches a few at a time and only let them just boil up. Prolonged boiling breaks down the fruit's cell structure, so the peaches turn soft and mushy and lose their shape.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peach, sugar, vinegar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Peppermintfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, sugar, vinegar. 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.

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