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Pears, Preserved, Red

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Red currant and gooseberry share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Pears, Preserved, Red

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare the pears by peeling and coring them.

  2. In a pot, combine sugar and water to create a syrup.

  3. If desired, add three or four drops of cochineal or a small amount of red currant or red gooseberry juice to the syrup for color.

  4. Add the pears to the syrup and simmer until tender.

  5. Pack the pears in sterilized jars and cover with syrup.

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. Red currant + gooseberrytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Pear + gooseberrytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pear + red curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together23 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + gooseberrytop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together131 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

Swap the red currant

The recipe marks red currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, sugar, gooseberry):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, sugar, gooseberry. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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