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Dessert

Stewed Pears

Stewed pears simmered with sugar, spices, water, port wine, and cochineal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Stewed Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the pears, halve them, and remove the cores, leaving the stalks on.

  2. Place the pears in a lined saucepan with the other ingredients.

Cook the pears

  1. Simmer gently for 3 to 4 hours until tender, watching carefully.

  2. Once done, lift the pears onto a glass dish without breaking them.

Make the syrup and finish

  1. Boil the syrup quickly for 2 to 3 minutes, then allow it to cool slightly.

  2. Pour the syrup over the pears and let them cool completely.

  3. Add a few drops of prepared cochineal to enhance the color if desired.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pear + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pear + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Pear + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Clove + port winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 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

Pears
Form the body of the dish, softening as they simmer until tender.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the poaching liquid and, as it reduces, thickens it into a syrup.
Port wine
Adds depth and a fruity, wine-based flavour to the syrup.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavour to the poaching liquid.
Whole allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes that permeate the pears and syrup.

The step that matters

Simmering gently for 3 to 4 hours. A gentle simmer lets the pears soften evenly without breaking apart. A hard boil would tear the fruit and cloud the syrup, so the heat must stay low and the pears watched throughout.

Swap the pear

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, clove, allspice, port wine. 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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