Why it works: Sugar and pear are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,079 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Canned Pears
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine the water and sugar in a pot.
Boil for about 10 minutes.
Cook and jar the pears
Add the peeled and halved pears to the pot.
Cook until the pears are soft.
Place the pears in jars and fill them to overflowing with the hot syrup.
Seal the jars immediately.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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 + peartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,079 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
- Pears
- Main fruit; cooking softens its flesh so it becomes tender in the jar.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve the fruit while it is stored.
The step that matters
Fill the jars with hot syrup and seal them immediately. Hot syrup and hot fruit help drive air out of the jar, so the contents cool under a partial vacuum that helps the seal form. Delaying the seal lets the jar cool and air return, which can leave the pears spoiling.
“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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