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Dessert

Compote of Pears

A compote made from pears, French roll, cloves, wine, lemon, and sugar, simmered and chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pear 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 ↓

Compote of Pears

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Toast or bake the sliced French roll until golden brown and dry, then crush into a coarse powder.

Cook

  1. In a pot, combine the crushed roll, water, crushed cloves, and sliced pears.

  2. Cover and cook gently for 1 hour.

  3. Press the mixture through a sieve back into the pot.

  4. Add the white wine, lemon juice, and sugar, then stir well.

  5. Simmer for another 20 minutes.

Chill and serve

  1. Pour into a large bowl or glass dish and chill on ice 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. Clove + peartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Pear + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Pear + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together942 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

French roll
Thickens the liquid as it breaks down, giving the compote body and a toasty flavor.
Pears
Provide the main fruit flavor and, as they soften, the bulk and texture of the compote.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the fruit and the acidity of the lemon and wine.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps keep the fruit's taste fresh.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic flavor that complements the pears.

The step that matters

Pressing the mixture through a sieve. Pushing the cooked pears and bread through a sieve separates the fine pulp from fibrous skins and seeds, producing a smooth texture. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the compote coarse and stringy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, white wine, lemon, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, white wine, lemon, sugar. 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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