Why it works: Pear and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,079 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Pear Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pears
Place the pears in a saucepan with a little cold water, cover, and cook over medium heat until soft.
Transfer the pears to cold water, then peel, quarter, and core them.
Cook the marmalade
Add 3 cups of water to the pears and bring to a boil.
Finely grind the sugar and mash the fruit until smooth.
Stir the sugar into the fruit mixture until it thickens to a jelly‑like consistency.
Jar and cool
Pour the marmalade into jars or tumblers and let it cool completely before sealing.
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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Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,079 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
- Small pears
- Break down into pulp that forms the body and texture of the marmalade.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and, as the mixture cooks down, helps it thicken and set into a jelly.
The step that matters
Stir the sugar in until the mixture thickens. Sugar and boiling concentrate the fruit and help it set. Too little cooking leaves the marmalade runny, while overcooking can make it stiff, sticky, or prone to crystallising.
“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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