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Dessert

Compote of Pears

A compote of pears simmered in a sugar and port wine syrup with cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 512 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Compote of Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the pears, cut them in half, and remove the core.

  2. Boil the sugar in water until clear.

  3. Add the port wine to the sugar syrup.

Cook

  1. Place the pears in a preserving pan and pour the syrup over them.

  2. Add the cloves, cover with paper, and simmer gently for 2 hours until tender.

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 + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pear + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Port wine + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + port winetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together805 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Pears
Form the body of the compote, softening into tender fruit during the long simmer.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps the pears keep their shape while they cook.
Port wine
Adds depth and a fruity, slightly sweet aroma to the syrup.
Cloves
Contribute warm, spiced aroma that infuses into the syrup and fruit.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until tender. A gentle simmer softens the pears evenly without breaking them apart. Boiling hard can turn the fruit mushy and cloud the syrup, so keep the heat low and covered.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, sugar, port wine):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Allspicefits less well

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

“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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