Name: To Preserve Pears
Ingredients: Pears; Thin syrup (sugar and water)

Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Preserve Pears

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Pears
Thin syrup (sugar and water)

Directions

Pare the pears very thin.
Simmer the pears in a thin syrup.
Let them sit for a day or two.
Make the syrup richer and simmer again.
Repeat until the pears are clear.
Drain and dry them in the sun or a cool oven for a short time.
Store in syrup and dry as needed for moisture and richness.

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.

Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pear + syruptop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together254 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,079 recipes

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