Name: Spiced Plums
Ingredients: 4 pounds of plums; 2 pounds of sugar; 1 tablespoon of cloves; 1 tablespoon of cinnamon; 1 tablespoon of mace; 1 tablespoon of allspice; vinegar (enough to cover)

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 Plums

Ingredients

Directions

Stone the plums.
Put all ingredients into a preserving kettle.
Cover with vinegar.
Boil until tender.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Plum + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together513 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,400 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Plums: The main fruit; as they cook, their flesh softens and absorbs the spiced syrup.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar: Provides acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the fruit.
Cloves: Adds a strong, warm aroma and spice flavour to the syrup.
Cinnamon: Adds sweet, woody aroma and warmth to the fruit.
Allspice: Adds a warm, peppery aroma that blends the other spices together.

The step that matters

Boil until tender. Plums soften as heat breaks down their cell walls. Stop when the fruit yields to a fork but still holds its shape.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (plum, sugar, clove, cinnamon, allspice, vinegar):

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Gingerfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against plum, sugar, clove, cinnamon, allspice, vinegar. 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.