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Can Fruit and Vegetables

A method for canning peaches and quinces with sugar and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and quince share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 46 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Can Fruit and Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Peel the peaches.

  2. Halve the clear-stone peaches.

  3. Slice the cling-stone peaches into uniform pieces.

  4. Place the peach pieces in water after cutting.

  5. Weigh the fruit.

Cook the fruit in syrup

  1. Layer the fruit and sugar in a vessel.

  2. Let the mixture stand until the sugar dissolves.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a preserving kettle.

  4. Heat the mixture for about 30 minutes until the fruit is thoroughly heated.

  5. While the fruit is boiling hot, fill the cans.

  6. Seal the cans immediately.

Prepare the quinces

  1. Pare the quinces.

  2. Cut the quinces into uniform pieces.

  3. Boil the quince pieces in clear water until slightly tender.

  4. Dissolve sugar in the water used for boiling quinces, using ½ cup of sugar for every pound of fruit.

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. Peach + quincetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together46 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

  3. 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

Peaches
Provide the main fruit flavour and soft texture once heated through.
Quinces
Add firm fruit pieces that soften when boiled and contribute a distinctive aroma.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it in the syrup.

The step that matters

Fill the cans while the fruit is boiling hot. Filling hot fruit and sealing immediately drives air out of the cans and helps the contents stay sterile and keep. Letting the fruit cool before filling gives air and microbes a chance to remain in the jar.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, sugar. 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.

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