Name: Quince Preserve
Ingredients: equal quantities of quinces and sugar; water

Why it works: Quince and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,444 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Quince Preserve

Ingredients

equal quantities of quinces and sugar
water

Directions

Prepare the quinces

Peel the quinces and cut them into quarters or eighths.
Boil the quinces in enough water to cover them until tender.
Remove the quinces and place them on a platter.

Make the syrup and cook

Make a syrup by boiling the cooking water and sugar together, skimming if necessary.
Return the quinces to the syrup and boil for 45 minutes.

Store

Transfer to a stone jar, cover with brandied paper, and seal tightly. Tie wrapping paper over the jar cover.

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.

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

Quinces: Supply the fruit flesh and natural pectin that gives the preserve its body and set.
Sugar: Sweetens the preserve and, by drawing water out of the fruit, helps it thicken and keep.

“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.