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Dessert

Pears Preserved

A method for preserving pears whole or halved in a sugared syrup with cloves, simmered until transparent.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 512 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Pears Preserved

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the pears

  1. Preserve pears whole, peeled with stems on, or halved and cored.

  2. Make a thin syrup.

  3. Boil the pears until tender, about 30 minutes.

Rest and reboil

  1. Let the pears sit in the syrup for 2 days for better flavor.

  2. Drain the syrup.

  3. Add more sugar.

  4. Boil for 10 minutes.

  5. Skim the syrup.

  6. Add the pears.

  7. Simmer until transparent.

Pack the jars

  1. Insert a clove into the end of each pear.

  2. Place them in a jar when cool.

  3. Pour the warm syrup over the pears.

Finish

  1. Quarter the pears.

  2. Boil in a little water.

  3. Add ½ pound of sugar per pound of pears.

  4. Simmer for 30 minutes.

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. Pear + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and clove barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pears
Form the preserved fruit, holding their shape and texture while cooking in syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, in the syrup, preserves it and helps it keep its form.
Cloves
Add a warm, spiced aroma that flavors the pears as they sit in the syrup.

The step that matters

Simmer until transparent. Gentle heat lets sugar slowly replace the water in the pear tissue, making it translucent. Hard boiling can break the fruit apart and leave it tough or mushy.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, 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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