Why it works: Quince and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,444 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Quince Preserves
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the quinces
Pare, core, and quarter the quinces.
Boil the quinces in enough clear water to cover until tender.
Make the syrup
Make a syrup by boiling 2 pounds of sugar with 1 pint of water.
When the syrup is boiling hot, add the quinces.
Finish
Use ¾ pound of sugar for every pound of fruit.
Save parings and cores for jelly.
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.
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Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,444 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
- Quinces
- Provide the fruit body and natural pectin that helps the preserve hold together and set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the preserve and thickens the syrup, giving it a firm, glossy texture.
The step that matters
Add the quinces to boiling-hot syrup. Adding the fruit to syrup that is already boiling keeps the mixture at a steady simmer, so the quinces cook evenly while sugar slowly penetrates them. Adding them to cool syrup slows the cooking and can leave the fruit uneven.
“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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