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Dessert

Quince Marmalade

A sweet preserve made from quinces, sugar, and water, cooked until soft and then cooled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Quince and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,444 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Quince Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare the quinces and cut them into small pieces.

  2. Boil the parings and cores in water.

  3. Strain the liquid.

  4. Add the quinces to the strained liquid.

Cook

  1. Boil until soft.

  2. Mash the quinces finely.

  3. Mix in the sugar.

  4. Cook gently for two hours.

Pot and store

  1. Pour into pint bowls.

  2. When cold, cover with brandy paper and seal.

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. Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,444 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

Quinces
Provide the fruit body and natural pectin that lets the marmalade set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, with long cooking, concentrates the mixture and helps it thicken and keep.

The step that matters

Cook gently for two hours. Gentle heat lets water evaporate slowly while the sugar and pectin thicken the fruit. Cooking too hard risks scorching on the base of the pan and a dark, bitter flavour.

“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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