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Dessert

Preserved Pears

A method of preserving pears by boiling them with sugar and water, then jarred.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Preserved Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the pears and place them whole in a granite or porcelain kettle.

  2. Add enough water to nearly cover the pears.

Cook

  1. Boil for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the sugar and boil slowly until the mixture thickens.

Jar

  1. Transfer the thickened mixture into jars.

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. 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

Pears
Provide the fruit that softens and breaks down into the preserve's body and flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, as it concentrates during slow boiling, helps it thicken and keep.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until the mixture thickens. Sugar concentrates as water evaporates, and too little or too fast a boil can leave the preserve runny or scorch the sugar on the kettle bottom. Slow, steady heat lets the mixture reach a thick set without burning.

“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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