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Preserved Pears

A method for preserving pears in sugar syrup with candied ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and ginger work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 452 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Preserved Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pears

  1. Peel, core, and cut the pears into lengthwise pieces.

  2. Boil the pears in enough water to cover them until tender.

  3. Drain the pears well and measure the fruit.

Make the preserve

  1. For every pound of fruit, use ½ pound of granulated sugar.

  2. For one peck of pears, add 1 pound of candied ginger.

  3. Make a syrup and drop the pears into it.

  4. Add the ginger and boil until the mixture is thick and clear.

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. Pear + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together452 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pears
Form the bulk of the preserve and provide the fruit texture once softened by boiling.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, at this concentration, helps the preserve set thick and clear.
Candied ginger
Adds sweetness and a warm, spicy aroma that flavours the preserve.

The step that matters

Boiling until thick and clear. Sugar and fruit must be cooked long enough to concentrate and gel. Stopping early leaves a thin, runny preserve, while overcooking can darken the sugar and toughen the fruit.

Swap the pear

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Orangefits about as well
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Pearthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger. 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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