Why it works: Quince and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,444 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Quince Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the quinces
Pare, core, and boil the quinces until very soft.
Mash the quinces with a spoon.
Make the marmalade
Add 1 pound of brown sugar for every pound of quince.
Boil slowly for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
Optionally, mix with apple.
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.
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Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,444 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
- Quinces
- Provide natural pectin and fruit body that helps the marmalade thicken and set.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and flavour, and concentrates the mixture so it can set as it thickens.
The step that matters
Boil slowly and stir for the full hour. Sugar-rich fruit mixtures can scorch and stick to the bottom of the pan. Stirring spreads the heat and keeps the sugar from burning. The mixture must cook long enough to reduce and concentrate, because pectin only sets properly at high sugar and the right thickness.
“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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