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Dessert

Pears, Stewed

Stewed pears simmered with sugar, cloves, allspice, water, and port wine, served with cream or custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pears, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Pare, core, and halve the pears, leaving the stalks if desired.

  2. Place the pears in a tinned saucepan with sugar, cloves, allspice, water, and port.

  3. Boil gently until the pears are soft but not broken, about 2.5 to 3 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the pears and place them on a glass dish.

  2. Strain the syrup over the pears once it has cooled.

  3. Serve with Devonshire cream or custard for added flavor.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pear + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pear + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Pear + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Clove + port winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Pears
Provide the main body and soft texture as they simmer in the syrup.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps give the pears a glossy, thick finish.
Port wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavor to the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil gently until the pears are soft but not broken. A gentle simmer lets the pears cook through evenly while keeping their shape. A hard boil can break the fruit apart and make the syrup cloudy.

Swap the pear

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, clove, allspice, port wine):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Pearthe original
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Orangefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, clove, allspice, port wine. 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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