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Dessert

Quinces the Spanish Way

Quince jam made with quince, water, sugar, rose water, wine, and perfumed confections.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Quince and orange work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 152 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Quinces the Spanish Way

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quinces

  1. Pare and core the quinces.

  2. Place them in a stewpan with water and sugar.

Cook and strain

  1. Cook on low heat until they begin to dry, then moisten with rose-water and wine.

  2. Press the mixture through a coarse sieve.

  3. Add more sugar and a little orange-flower and rose water.

  4. When it comes off clean on a plate, set aside to cool.

Pot and seal

  1. Transfer to shallow pots, sprinkle with perfumed confections, and cover tightly.

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. Quince + orangetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Rose + orangetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together876 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. White wine + orangetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together730 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Quince + rosetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Quince + white winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Quinces
Provide the fruit body and pectin that thickens the jam as it cooks down.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and helps it set into a thick, spreadable texture.
Water
Helps the quinces soften so they can be pressed through the sieve.
Sack or white wine
Adds moisture and a light acidity to the fruit mixture during cooking.

The step that matters

Cooking until the mixture comes off clean on a plate. Quince jam sets as water evaporates and pectin and sugar concentrate. Stopping too early leaves it runny; cooking too long makes it stiff and dense once cooled.

Swap the quince

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, rose, white wine, orange):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, rose, white wine, orange. 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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