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Dessert

Plum Conserve

A sweet preserve made from plums, sugar, raisins, walnuts, lemon and orange juice, and orange rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Plum Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the stones from the plums and chop them using a food chopper.

Cook and seal

  1. In a large pot, combine the chopped plums, sugar, raisins, walnut meats, lemon juice, orange juice, and chopped orange rind.

  2. Boil the mixture for 40 minutes, stirring frequently.

  3. Add the chopped nuts last and mix well.

  4. Seal the preserve while hot.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Plum + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Walnut + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 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

Blue plums
Provide the fruit base and natural pectin that helps the preserve thicken.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and draws water out of the fruit, helping the preserve thicken and keep.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that supports pectin setting and brightens the flavour.
Seeded raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and a chewy texture.
Walnut meats
Add crunch and richness to the preserve.

The step that matters

Stir frequently while boiling. The mixture is very high in sugar and thick with fruit, so it can scorch on the bottom of the pot. Frequent stirring spreads the heat evenly and prevents burnt flavour.

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, raisin, walnut, meat, lemon, orange):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Cranberryfits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, walnut, meat, lemon, orange. 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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