Why it works: Quince and apple work together. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓
Quince Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Use quince wine to make the jelly.
Optionally, sweeten with sugar to reduce acidity.
For a less acidic and well-flavored jelly, use half sweet apple juice.
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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Quince + appletop 1% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together506 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Wine + appletop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,207 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Quince + winetop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together63 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,444 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar and apple barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the apple
The recipe marks apple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quince, wine, sugar):
- Applethe original
- Pearfits about as well
- Plumfits about as well
- Vanillafits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against quince, wine, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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