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Dessert

Pears Stewed

Stewed pears simmered in water, molasses, and brown sugar until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Pears Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Select small pears free from knots and worms.

  2. Wash the pears and arrange them in a deep kettle.

Stew and serve

  1. Pour enough boiling water over the pears to come within two inches of the top.

  2. Cover and simmer slowly on the back of the range.

  3. When tender, pour over half a cup of molasses and half a cup of brown sugar for every gallon of fruit.

  4. Stew until soft but not broken.

  5. Remove and pour the syrup over them.

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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Pear + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together47 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Small pears
Provide the fruit that softens during stewing and gives the dish its body.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness, a rich flavour and moisture to the syrup.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken the syrup as it coats the fruit.

The step that matters

Stew until soft but not broken. Gentle, slow simmering softens the pears' cell walls evenly while keeping their shape. A hard boil makes the fruit burst and fall apart, so keep the liquid barely simmering and check for tenderness.

Swap the pear

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pearthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, 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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