Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Pear Preserves
Ingredients
Directions
Preserve pears as you would for quinces.
Flavor the mixture with sliced lemon and ginger root.
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.
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Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,154 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Pear + gingertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together452 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Pear + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together942 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the pear
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, ginger):
- Limefits better
- Orangefits better
- Mangofits better
- Pearthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, ginger. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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