Name: Preserves, Canned Fruit, and Fruit Cordials
Ingredients: Fruits of your choice (berries, cherries, grapes, peaches, pears, plums, apples, pineapples, quinces); Sugar (if making syrup); Water

Why it works: Pear and plum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 245 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Preserves, Canned Fruit, and Fruit Cordials

Ingredients

Fruits of your choice (berries, cherries, grapes, peaches, pears, plums, apples, pineapples, quinces)
Sugar (if making syrup)
Water

Directions

Scald the fruit in syrup if desired, but do not boil for long.
Pack the fruit closely in jars without sugar or water.
Place jars in a boiler surrounded by straw or hay, adding cold water to reach two-thirds up the jars.
Cover the boiler tightly with a cloth or rubber band.
Boil steadily for the required time: 15 minutes for berries, 20 minutes for cherries and grapes, 25 minutes for peaches and apples, and 30 minutes for uncut pineapples and quinces.
For canned fruit with sugar, make a syrup and boil the fruit until it looks transparent.
Transfer the hot fruit to heated cans, filling them to overflowing and immediately screwing on the covers.
Once jars are cold, tighten the covers and turn them upside down to ensure they are sealed.

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.

Pear + plumtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pear + appletop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together649 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Peach + plumtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together163 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pear + quincetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together133 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Peach + peartop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together114 recipes

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

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

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peach, pear, plum, apple, pineapple, quince, sugar):

Apricotfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, pear, plum, apple, pineapple, quince, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.