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 ↓
Ego Plums
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the syrup
Pierce the skins of the plums with a large needle.
Boil the sugar with ½ cup water to make a syrup.
Cook and pack
Add the plums to the hot syrup and boil for about 30 minutes until clear.
Remove the plums and let them cool.
Pack the plums into jars and strain the hot syrup over them.
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.
-
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
What each ingredient does
- Plums
- Provide the fruit itself, with flavour and flesh that softens and turns clear as they cook.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and gives it body, helping to preserve the fruit.
The step that matters
Boiling the plums in the syrup. Boiling for the full time until the plums turn clear lets the sugar penetrate the fruit. Boiling too hard can break the plums apart, so keep the syrup at a steady, controlled boil.
“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.
You might also like
Mixed Fruit Sherbet6 recipes
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.