Why it works: Pear and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,079 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Baked Pears
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat oven to 300°F (150°C).
Cut pears in half and peel them.
Place pears in an enameled pudding dish and sprinkle sugar over them.
Pour 1 cup of hot water into the dish and cover tightly.
Bake and serve
Bake slowly until pears are tender.
Serve cold.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,079 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
- Pears
- Form the main body of the dish, softening into tender fruit as they bake in the steam.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps sweeten the pear flesh as it softens.
- Hot water
- Creates steam in the covered dish, gently cooking the pears without drying them out.
The step that matters
Covering the dish tightly. A tight cover traps steam so the pears cook evenly in moist heat. If the dish is left open, the surface dries and the pears can toughen before the centres become tender.
“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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