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 Fruit Whole, Without Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Prepare the fruit by wiping plums or removing stems from cherries or gooseberries.
Pack the fruit tightly into glass jars without bruising.
Screw the tops on tightly and place the jars in a boiler of cold water, covering them completely.
Cook and seal
Bring the water to a boil and watch for the fruit to cook until the skins split or gooseberries turn yellow.
Remove a jar. Take off the top. Fill the jar with fast-boiling water from the kettle. Quickly screw the top back on.
Let the jar cool, tightening again when cold.
Finish with syrup
For a delicious preserve, use ripe fruit and fill jars with boiling syrup made from 5 cups sugar and 6 cups water, boiled for 10 minutes.
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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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
- Fruit (in the method)
- Provides the body, flavour and sweetness of the preserve, and is cooked until its skins split or flesh softens.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve the fruit's flavour and texture.
- Water
- Makes the syrup and forms the hot bath that cooks the sealed jars.
The step that matters
Bringing the water to a boil and watching the fruit. The fruit must cook until its skins split or gooseberries turn yellow. Undercooked fruit stays firm and may not be properly heated through, while overcooking breaks it down into mush.
“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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