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Sugared Quinces

A preserved quince dish sweetened with sugar and boiled until tender.

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 ↓

Sugared Quinces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quinces

  1. Wipe the quinces with a wet cloth, then peel, core, and cut them into eighths.

  2. Place the cores and parings in a small cloth bag and boil them with the quinces in a preserving kettle covered with boiling water.

  3. Boil gently until the quinces are tender, then drain and cool them.

Pack with sugar

  1. Weigh the cooled quinces and use an equal amount of granulated sugar.

  2. Layer the quinces and sugar in glass or earthen jars, then cover the jars airtight.

Check and scald

  1. Check the jars frequently for signs of fermentation.

  2. If fermentation is present, place the jars in a large pan of warm water, loosen the covers, and heat the water until the quinces are scalding hot.

  3. Seal the jars airtight again after the quinces are scalded.

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
Provide the fruit that becomes tender and sweet, forming the body of the preserve.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the fruit by drawing out moisture.

The step that matters

Checking the jars for fermentation. Sugared fruit can ferment if air or wild yeasts get in. Checking often lets you catch fermentation early, and scalding the quinces kills the microbes that cause it before the jars are resealed.

“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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