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Dessert

Pickled Quinces

Pickled Quinces are quinces preserved in a syrup of sugar, vinegar, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pickled Quinces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and boil

  1. Peel, quarter, and core the quinces.

  2. Boil the quinces in just enough water for 15 minutes, boiling very gently.

Make the pickle

  1. Drain and skim the quinces carefully into the syrup made of sugar, vinegar, and spices, already heated to simmering.

  2. Let the mixture cook gently for 5 minutes and seal up.

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. Quince + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Quince + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Quinces
Main fruit; its firm flesh holds its shape through cooking and pickling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, at this concentration, helps preserve the fruit.
Vinegar
Adds acidity and tang, and helps preserve the fruit.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma to the syrup.
Whole cloves
Adds warm, spicy aroma to the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil the quinces very gently. Quinces are firm and need a long, gentle cook to soften. Vigorous boiling breaks the fruit apart and makes the pieces ragged, so keep the water barely bubbling.

Swap the quince

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

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

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