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Preserve of the Magnum Bonum, or Mogul Plum

A preserve made from Mogul plums and sugar, boiled and stirred until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Preserve of the Magnum Bonum, or Mogul Plum

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare and weigh the plums.

Cook the preserve

  1. Boil the plums for 40 minutes.

  2. Stir in half the weight of sugar and dissolve it.

  3. Continue boiling for an additional 10 minutes, skimming the preserve carefully.

  4. For added flavor, mix in blanched kernels of fruit-stones 2-3 minutes before removing from heat.

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 + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 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

Mogul plums
Provide the fruit body, natural pectin and acidity that help the preserve thicken and set.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the preserve and helps it set and keep by binding water.
Blanched fruit-stone kernels
Add a subtle nutty, almond-like aroma to the preserve.

The step that matters

Dissolving the sugar fully before the final boil. Sugar that is not fully dissolved can recrystallize and leave a grainy texture, and undissolved sugar on the pan bottom can scorch during the long boil. Stirring until clear before boiling hard keeps the preserve smooth.

“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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