Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓
Pear Pickle
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pears
Select small, sound pears and remove the blossom end. Pierce each pear with a fork.
Make the pickle
In a pot, combine cider vinegar, sugar, allspice, cinnamon, and cloves. Bring the mixture to a boil.
Add the pears to the boiling mixture and cook until tender.
Seal the pears in jars while hot.
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.
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Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,189 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,874 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,536 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Pear + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together600 recipes
Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
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Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,431 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pears
- Form the body of the pickle, becoming tender as they cook in the spiced syrup.
- Cider vinegar
- Provides the acidity that gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavor.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar's sharpness and helps preserve the pears.
- Cinnamon
- Contributes warm, sweet aroma to the syrup.
- Cloves
- Adds pungent, warm aroma to the syrup.
- Allspice
- Adds warm, peppery aroma that rounds out the spiced syrup.
The step that matters
Cook the pears until tender. Cooking in boiling syrup softens the pears and lets them absorb the spiced vinegar. Undercooked pears stay firm and bland, while overcooking makes them mushy and can break them apart in the jars.
Swap the pear
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, sugar, allspice, cinnamon, clove):
- Applefits better
- Quincefits about as well
- Figfits about as well
- Pearthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, sugar, allspice, cinnamon, clove. 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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