Name: Canning, Preserving and Jelly Making
Ingredients: various fruits (e.g., apricots, apples, blackberries, cherries, currants, gooseberries, grapes, huckleberries, peaches, plums, pineapple, pears, quinces, rhubarb, raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes); granulated sugar

Why it works: Plum and pear match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 245 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Canning, Preserving and Jelly Making

Ingredients

various fruits (e.g., apricots, apples, blackberries, cherries, currants, gooseberries, grapes, huckleberries, peaches, plums, pineapple, pears, quinces, rhubarb, raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes)
granulated sugar

Directions

Ensure cans and elastics are perfect and tops fit properly.
Boil cans and covers in a kettle of water.
Dip elastics into boiling water to sterilize.
Fill cans with boiling hot fruit to overflowing.
Quickly put the top on and screw it down tightly.
As the fruit cools, screw down the tops again to keep them tight.
Use glass cans for best results.
To test for air tightness, turn cans upside down; if juice oozes out, they are not airtight.
Wrap each can with paper to exclude light and store in a cool, dry, dark place.
Examine cans two or three days after filling; if syrup leaks, recook the fruit for jam or jelly.

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.

Plum + peartop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Apricot + peachtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together342 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Apricot + plumtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together284 recipes

Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).
Apple + peartop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together649 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Peach + plumtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together163 recipes

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

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

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apricot, apple, grape, peach, plum, pineapple, pear):

Figfits better
Strawberryfits better
Bananafits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apricot, apple, grape, peach, plum, pineapple, pear. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.