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Dessert

Stewed Pears with Rice

A dessert of stewed pears served over milk‑sweetened rice, topped with a bitter almond‑flavored syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stewed Pears with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pears

  1. Pare and halve the pears.

  2. In a saucepan, combine pears, sugar, and claret or water.

  3. Stew slowly until the pears are tender and clear.

Make the syrup

  1. Remove the pears and boil down the syrup until it reduces by half.

  2. Flavor the syrup with essence of bitter almond.

Assemble and serve

  1. Prepare the boiled rice in milk and sweeten to taste.

  2. Spread the rice on a flat dish, place the pears on top, and pour the syrup over them.

  3. Serve very cold.

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. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pear + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together175 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pear + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together300 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pear + ricetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Pears
Provide the main fruit body and tender texture after slow stewing.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the syrup thicken as it reduces.
Claret or clear water
Forms the poaching liquid that cooks the pears and becomes the syrup.
Boiled rice
Forms a soft, mild base that holds the pears and absorbs the syrup.
Milk
Cooks into the rice, adding richness and a softer, creamier texture.

The step that matters

Stew the pears slowly. Gentle heat softens the pears evenly and keeps them whole and clear. A hard boil can break the fruit apart and make the pears cloudy and mushy.

Swap the pear

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, rice, milk, almond. 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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