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Dessert

Plum Conserve

A sweet preserve made from blue plums, raisins, oranges, lemon, sugar, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Plum Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Add just enough water to the plums to prevent sticking.

  2. Cook the plums until the juice is extracted.

  3. Add the raisins, oranges, lemon, and sugar to the plums.

  4. Cook slowly until the mixture thickens to a jam consistency.

  5. Add the chopped almonds about 10 minutes before removing from heat.

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.

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.

  1. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Plum + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Plum + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Blue plums
Provide the main fruit body, pectin, and tart flavour that forms the jam.
White sugar
Sweetens the jam and, as it dissolves and concentrates, helps it set and preserves it.
Oranges
Add citrus acidity and bitter aroma, and their pectin-rich peel helps thicken the jam.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and supports pectin setting.
Seeded raisins
Add concentrated sweetness, body, and moisture to the jam.
Shelled almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavour, staying textured in the finished jam.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until the mixture thickens. Sugar and fruit must be concentrated to the right point for the jam to set. Undercooking leaves it runny, while overcooking over high heat can scorch the sugar and darken the flavour.

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, orange, lemon, sugar, almond):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Cranberryfits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, orange, lemon, sugar, almond. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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