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Preserves and Fruit Jellies

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 and Fruit Jellies

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Scour the kettle with sand, then with salt and vinegar. Rinse and scald it.

  2. Combine sugar and water in the kettle to make syrup.

  3. Peel the fruit and soak it in cold water to prevent browning.

  4. Boil the fruit quickly in the syrup for a short time, then remove and let it cool.

  5. Repeat the boiling process with the cooled fruit.

  6. Use cut sugar for clear preserves and brown sugar for darker jams.

  7. For damsons and plums, slit them lengthwise and sun-dry before preserving.

  8. Stone cherries before preserving.

  9. Cover the preserves with a piece of paper dipped in brandy.

  10. Store preserves in glass jars with screw tops for easy inspection.

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. Pear + plumtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together245 recipes

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

  2. Peach + plumtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together163 recipes

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

  3. Pear + quincetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together133 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Peach + peartop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together114 recipes

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

  5. Quince + plumtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together92 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Swap the quince

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

  1. Apricotfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Quincethe original

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

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