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Peach-pear Preserves

A preserve made by simmering sliced pears and peaches with sugar until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Bartlett pear and peach work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Peach-pear Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the pears and peaches.

  2. Weigh the fruit and use an equal amount of sugar.

  3. Mix the fruit and sugar well and place in a pot on the stove.

Cook and store

  1. Simmer for about 3 hours until the fruit is dark and thick.

  2. Jar the preserves and store for use.

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. Bartlett pear + peachtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Bartlett pear + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together83 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Bartlett pears
Add body and mild sweet flavor as the fruit softens and breaks down during cooking.
Peaches
Supply the main fruity flavor and juice that cooks down into the syrup.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the fruit and draws out its juice, and as water evaporates it thickens the preserves and helps preserve them.

The step that matters

Simmer until the fruit is dark and thick. Sugar and fruit must cook long enough for water to evaporate and the sugar concentration to rise. Stopping early leaves a thin, runny preserve that may spoil sooner, while cooking too long can scorch the sugar and make it overly stiff.

Swap the bartlett pear

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Bartlett pearthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, sugar. 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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