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 ↓
Egg Plums
Ingredients
Directions
Boil water and let the plums stand in it for five minutes.
Place the plums in a colander set over a deep pan and pour boiling water over them until the skin cracks.
Peel the plums carefully to avoid breaking them.
Make a syrup using equal parts sugar and water.
Boil the plums in the syrup until cooked.
Transfer the plums to a flat dish to cool.
Pack the plums into jars and pour the hot syrup over them.
Seal the jars tightly.
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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Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
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