Skip to main content
Dessert

Red Pears, to Preserve

A method for preserving red pears in a sugar syrup with spices and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Red Pears, to Preserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pears

  1. Weigh the pears and peel them, then cut them in half.

Make the syrup

  1. For every pound of sugar, use half a pint of water to make a clear syrup.

  2. Add cloves, cinnamon, cochineal, and port to the syrup.

Cook and preserve

  1. Gently simmer the pears in the syrup until they are clear and brightly colored.

  2. Remove the pears and place them in jars.

  3. Strain the syrup, pour it over the pears, and seal the jars.

  4. Store in a cool, dry place.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Pear + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together600 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 is cooked and preserved in the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it in the syrup.
Port wine
Adds depth of flavor and contributes to the wine-red color of the syrup.
Cochineal
Supplies the bright red color that gives the pears their hue.

The step that matters

Gently simmer the pears until clear and brightly colored. Simmering gently keeps the pear pieces intact while the syrup slowly penetrates them. Boiling vigorously can break the fruit apart and cause uneven color and texture.

Swap the pear

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, clove, cinnamon, 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.

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes