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Spiced Quinces

A preserved quince dish made by boiling quinces in a spiced vinegar-sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Quinces

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, water, and sugar; bring to a boil.

  2. Add whole allspice, cloves, and pieces of cinnamon bark.

  3. Boil until it forms a thin syrup, skimming off any foam.

Cook the quinces

  1. Add the prepared quinces and boil until they can be pierced with a fork.

  2. Transfer the quinces to jars.

  3. Boil the syrup down until thick and pour it over the quinces.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + quincetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Cinnamon + quincetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Quinces
Provide the fruit that softens during boiling and takes on the spiced syrup flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps it thicken as the liquid reduces.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and sharpens the flavour of the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup down until thick. Reducing the syrup concentrates its sugar, so it thickens as it cools and clings to the fruit. Too little reduction leaves a thin, watery coating.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Orangefits about as well
  3. Quincethe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, allspice, clove, cinnamon. 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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