Why it works: Plum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Canned Plums
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the syrup
Prick the plums with a needle to prevent bursting.
In a saucepan, combine water and sugar to make a syrup.
Heat the syrup until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is warm.
Cook and can
Add the plums to the syrup and heat slowly to a boil.
Boil the plums for five minutes.
Fill jars with the plums and pour the hot syrup over them until it runs down the sides.
Seal the jars.
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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Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,313 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
- Plums
- Provide the fruit, which softens and holds its shape while cooking in the syrup.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and helps the syrup preserve its texture and flavor.
The step that matters
Pricking the plums before cooking. Pricking lets steam and syrup move into the fruit and reduces the pressure that would otherwise split the skin during heating, helping the plums stay whole.
“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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