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Dessert

Plum Conserve

A sweet preserve made from plums, walnuts, sugar, raisins, and orange zest and juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 309 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Plum Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut up the plums and chop the walnuts coarsely.

  2. Add the yellow rind and juice of the orange.

  3. Mix all ingredients together and cook for 30 minutes or until thick.

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. Plum + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together309 recipes

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

  2. Walnut + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Walnut + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Plums
Provide the fruit base and natural pectin that helps the preserve thicken and set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and binds water, helping the preserve thicken and keep.
English walnuts
Add crunch and a rich, slightly oily texture against the soft fruit.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Orange
Its juice adds acidity to balance sweetness, and its zest adds bright aroma.

The step that matters

Cook until thick. Sugar and fruit pectin set as water evaporates during cooking. Stopping too early leaves the preserve runny and prone to spoiling, while cooking too long can make it overly stiff and caramelised.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (plum, sugar, raisin, orange):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against plum, sugar, raisin, orange. 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.

More plum preserve recipes

Green Orange 18Damson 9Mogul 7 See all 25 →

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