Name: White Compote Op Pears
Ingredients: pears; water; syrup; slice of lemon

Why it works: Pear and lemon work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 942 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

White Compote Op Pears

Ingredients

pears
water
syrup
slice of lemon

Directions

Blanch the pears in boiling water until soft, keeping the skins on.
Remove the pears and place them in cold water.
Prepare your syrup in a stewpan and bring it to a boil.
Add the pears and a slice of lemon to the boiling syrup to keep them white.
Once thoroughly stewed, remove the pears and serve them in the syrup, either hot or cold.

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.

Pear + lemontop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together942 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Pear + syruptop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together254 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Syrup + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,235 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).