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To Preserie Quinces

A method for preserving quinces in sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Preserie Quinces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the quinces.

  2. Boil the quinces until a straw can pierce them easily.

  3. Prepare a syrup with 1 pound of sugar for each pound of quinces.

Preserve

  1. Transfer the quinces into the hot syrup.

  2. Cook until they turn red.

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. Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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
Firm fruit that softens with boiling and cooking, becoming tender while holding its shape.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, in a syrup, draws water out of it to help preserve it.

The step that matters

Boil the quinces until a straw can pierce them easily. Quinces are very hard when raw, and heat is what softens their dense flesh. Boiling until a straw passes through shows the fruit is tender enough to absorb syrup evenly. Stopping too early leaves them firm in the centre, while overcooking can make them fall apart in the syrup.

“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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