Name: Pickled Pears
Ingredients: Seckel pears; 3-4 whole cloves per pear; 1 quart boiling vinegar; 1 pint sugar

Why it works: Pear and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 512 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Pickled Pears

Ingredients

Seckel pears
3-4 whole cloves per pear
1 quart boiling vinegar
1 pint sugar

Directions

Prepare

Steam the pears until easily punctured with a fork.
Place 3-4 cloves into each pear as you pack them into an earthen jar.

Pickle

Once the jar is full, pour boiling vinegar over the pears.
Add 1 pint of sugar for each quart of vinegar used.
Let the pears sit for a week before using.

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.

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.

Pear + clovetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together512 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Clove + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,386 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pear + vinegartop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together380 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked 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

Seckel pears: Provide the fruit that is softened by steaming and then flavoured by the pickling liquid.
Cloves: Add warm, aromatic spice flavour that infuses the pears during the pickling rest.
Vinegar: Provides acidity that preserves the pears and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy taste.
Sugar: Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.