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Pears Stewed in Butter

Pears stewed in butter with clove, sugar, currant jelly, and soaked macaroons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 512 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Pears Stewed in Butter

6 large pears

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pears

  1. Pare and core the pears without breaking them.

  2. Fill each cavity with crushed clove, moist sugar, and a small lump of butter.

Stew

  1. Place the pears in a stewpan with the stalk ends up.

  2. Pour clarified butter over the pears and cover the saucepan tightly.

  3. Stew gently for about 1 hour until the pears are soft but not broken.

Finish and serve

  1. Carefully lift out the pears and fill the hollows with red currant jelly.

  2. Arrange the pears on a dish with the narrow parts meeting in the center.

  3. Pile the soaked macaroons in the center of the fruit and pour the syrup around before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pear + sherrytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Clove + red curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together128 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  5. Clove + sherrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,237 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

Baking pears
Provide the main fruit, which softens into a tender base during gentle stewing.
Clarified butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and helps the pears stew gently without drying.
Macaroons
Soak up the sherry syrup and add a crisp, almond-sweet contrast to the soft fruit.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a tart fruit glaze that fills the hollows and sets the pears.

The step that matters

Stew gently with the pan covered. Low, gentle heat in a tightly covered pan softens the pears through steam without breaking their structure. Boiling hard would tear the flesh and turn the fruit mushy.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, clove, sugar, butter, sherry):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, clove, sugar, butter, sherry. 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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