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Dessert

Pickled Quinces

Pickled quinces are quinces boiled and then preserved in a vinegar, sugar, and clove solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Quince and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 164 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pickled Quinces

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the quinces whole until soft.

  2. In a separate pot, boil 1 quart of vinegar with 1 pound of brown sugar and 1 teaspoon of cloves.

  3. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the quinces.

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. Quince + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Quince + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together66 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. 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
Form the pickled fruit and carry its tender, fragrant flesh once softened by boiling.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the fruit and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy character.
Brown sugar
Sweetness that balances the vinegar's sharpness and adds caramel depth.
Cloves
Warm, aromatic spice that flavors the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Boil the quinces whole until soft. Quinces are very firm and tart when raw, and they need thorough cooking to become tender. Boiling them whole keeps the fruit intact, and undercooked quinces stay hard and won't absorb the pickling liquid well.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quince, vinegar, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against quince, vinegar, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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