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To Dry or Preserve Mogul Plums in Syrup

A method of preserving Mogul plums in syrup by layering with sugar and simmering until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

To Dry or Preserve Mogul Plums in Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare the plums, leaving the stalks and stones intact.

  2. Weigh the plums and use an equal weight of dry sifted sugar.

  3. Layer the plums in a deep dish and sprinkle the sugar over them.

  4. Let the plums sit overnight.

Cook and preserve

  1. Gently pour the plums and sugar into a preserving pan.

  2. Heat slowly and let simmer for five minutes.

  3. Repeat this process every two to three days until the fruit is tender and clear.

  4. Transfer the plums to jars, keeping them in the syrup, or drain and dry them gradually.

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. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 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

What each ingredient does

Mogul plums
Provide the fruit that softens and turns clear during the repeated simmering and resting.
Dry sifted sugar
Draws water out of the fruit and forms the syrup that preserves it.

The step that matters

Repeating the simmer over several days. Heating the plums and sugar in repeated short cycles lets syrup slowly penetrate the fruit. Heating all at once can toughen or break the skins and leave the fruit shrivelled rather than tender and clear.

“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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