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 ↓
Canned Plums
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Prick the plums to prevent breaking.
Layer the plums and sugar alternately in a preserving kettle.
Cook
Let the mixture sit on the back of the stove for 1-2 hours.
Place the kettle over moderate heat and bring to a boil.
Skim off any foam and pour the mixture into jars.
Jar
Run a spoon handle around the inside of the jar to remove air bubbles.
Cover and screw down the jar tops.
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
- Plums
- Provide the fruit body, flavor and juice that forms the syrup with the sugar.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and draws juice from the plums, forming a syrup that helps preserve the fruit.
The step that matters
Letting the plums and sugar sit before heating. Sitting lets the sugar dissolve and draw juice out of the pricked plums, forming a syrup. Heating too early can leave undissolved sugar and cook the fruit unevenly, so the texture and syrup may suffer.
“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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