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To Preserve Plums

A method for preserving plums by cooking them with sugar into a syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Preserve Plums

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Remove the peel from the plums.

  2. If the plums are very sweet, use an equal amount of sugar; if sour, use 1¼ pounds of sugar for every pound of fruit.

  3. Combine the plums and sugar to make a syrup and let it sit overnight.

Cook the preserves

  1. Transfer the mixture to a kettle and cook slowly until the plums are clear, skimming off any scum that rises.

  2. Let the mixture sit overnight again.

  3. If the syrup is thin, strain it from the plums, boil it, and add more sugar to thicken it.

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.

  1. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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 that softens and turns clear during slow cooking, forming the preserve.
Sugar
Draws water out of the fruit to form a syrup and preserves the plums through its concentration.

The step that matters

Cooking slowly until the plums are clear. Slow cooking lets the sugar syrup penetrate the fruit gradually, so it stays whole and clear rather than breaking down. Skimming removes scum that would otherwise cloud the syrup and affect flavor.

“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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