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 ↓
Baked Pears
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Wipe the pears, leaving the stems intact.
Place the pears in an earthen baking dish.
Bake
Pour the boiling water around the pears and add the sugar.
Cover with another dish and bake at 300°F (150°C) until the pears are tender, basting occasionally.
Cool and serve
Once done, let the pears cool in the baking dish.
Transfer the cooled pears to a glass dish and pour the cooking liquid over them before serving.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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 softens and becomes tender as it bakes.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps build a syrupy cooking liquid.
- Boiling water
- Creates steam and a cooking liquid that keeps the pears moist as they bake.
The step that matters
Baking until tender. Covering the pears and baking them in the water traps steam so the flesh cooks through evenly. Pulling them too early leaves the centers firm, while basting helps keep the surfaces moist and prevents drying.
“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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