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Dessert

Pickled Quinces

Pickled quinces are preserved in a sugar, vinegar, and spice syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pickled Quinces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quinces

  1. Peel, quarter, and core the quinces.

  2. Boil the quinces in just enough water to cover them for 15 minutes, cooking gently.

Make the syrup and jar

  1. Drain the quinces and skim them into the syrup made of sugar, vinegar, and spices, which should be heated to a simmer.

  2. Cook gently for 5 minutes and then seal the jars.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Quince + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Quince + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Quinces
Provide the main fruit, whose natural pectin helps the preserve set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the fruit in the syrup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the fruit.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma to the syrup and the fruit.
Whole cloves
Adds spiced aroma to the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil the quinces gently in just enough water. Quince flesh is firm and dense. A vigorous boil can break the pieces apart and make them mushy, while gentle cooking softens them evenly so they keep their shape in the syrup.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Quincethe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, clove, cinnamon. 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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