Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Spiced Pears and Peaches
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Cut the pears in half, remove the seeds and peel the pears.
Insert 3 or 4 cloves into each pear.
Make the spiced syrup
Combine vinegar and sugar in a pot and bring the mixture to a boil.
Divide cinnamon, allspice, and ginger into two portions, place the portions in cheesecloth and tie the cheesecloth tightly.
Add the tied cheesecloth to the boiling mixture, then add the pears and lemon rind.
Bring the mixture to a boil, then remove from heat.
Transfer the mixture to a stone jar and let the jar sit in a cool place overnight.
Rest and repeat
Drain the syrup into a porcelain or agate kettle and cook the syrup over moderate heat.
Pour the syrup back over the pears.
Repeat the draining, cooking and pouring for seven consecutive days.
Finish and jar
Boil the syrup down until it just covers the fruit.
Add the fruit to the hot syrup and bring to a boil.
Transfer to stone or glass jars.
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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Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,189 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,874 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,536 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,380 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,038 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pears or peaches
- Provide the fruit that is preserved and softened in the spiced syrup.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve the fruit.
- Vinegar
- Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the fruit.
- Cinnamon
- Adds warm aromatic spice flavour to the syrup.
- Ginger root
- Adds a bright, warm aroma to the syrup.
The step that matters
Repeating the syrup draining and pouring for seven days. Repeatedly reheating the syrup and pouring it over the fruit gradually lets sugar and flavour penetrate the fruit while the syrup thickens, so skipping days or rushing the boil can leave the fruit less preserved and less flavourful.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, sugar, vinegar, ginger, clove, allspice, cinnamon):
- Quincefits better
- Plumfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pear, sugar, vinegar, ginger, clove, allspice, cinnamon. 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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