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To Preserve Whole or Half Quinces

A method for preserving whole or halved quinces in a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and quince are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,444 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

To Preserve Whole or Half Quinces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Add sliced golden pippins to a pot of boiling water, cover, and boil quickly until the water thickens into jelly.

  2. Scald the quinces.

Make the preserve

  1. For each pint of pippin jelly, add one pound of sugar, boil, and skim until clear.

  2. Add whole quinces to the syrup and boil rapidly; if using halved quinces, boil them separately.

  3. Skim the syrup and test a small amount to see if it jellies before removing from heat.

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. Sugar + quincetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,444 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

Golden pippins
Their natural pectin and acid help the liquid thicken into a jelly that sets the preserve.
Quinces
They supply the fruit flavour and body, and their pectin adds to the setting of the syrup.
Sugar
It sweetens the preserve and, with boiling, concentrates the syrup so it can set.

The step that matters

Test for set before removing from heat. Pectin sets only at the right concentration of sugar, acid and heat. Removing the syrup too early leaves it runny, while cooking too long can make it stiff and dull.

“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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