Why it works: Sugar and plum are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Plum Preserves
Ingredients
Directions
Combine 1 pound of sugar with 1 pound of plums in a pot.
Heat the mixture to create a syrup.
Once the syrup begins to boil thick, add the plums.
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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Sugar + plumtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,313 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
- Plums
- Provide the fruit body and flavor, along with natural pectin that helps the preserve set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit, forms the syrup that thickens the preserve, and helps preserve it.
The step that matters
Adding the plums to the boiling syrup. Sugar must dissolve and the syrup must reach a thick boil before the fruit goes in. Adding fruit to a thin syrup slows thickening and can leave the fruit overcooked by the time the preserve sets.
“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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