Why it works: Pear and sugar 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 ↓
To Preserve Pears
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pears
Pare and weigh the pears.
Boil the pears whole in a little water until soft.
Remove the pears and measure out ½ cup of the boiling water.
Make the syrup
For every pound of sugar, add 1 pound of fruit to the syrup.
Boil the syrup for half an hour.
Preserve
Place the pears in a jar and pour the cooled syrup over them.
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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Pear + sugartop 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
- Provide the fruit that is softened and preserved in the syrup.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it by drawing out water.
“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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