Name: Wild Plums and Damson Plums
Ingredients: wild plums or damson plums; thin or medium boiling syrup

Why it works: Plum and syrup work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 143 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Wild Plums and Damson Plums

Ingredients

wild plums or damson plums
thin or medium boiling syrup

Directions

Prepare the fruit

Grade fruit for size and ripeness.
Wash and pack in glass jars.
Fill jars with thin or medium boiling syrup.
Place rubbers and caps on jars, but do not tighten.

Sterilize

If using a hot-water bath, sterilize for 16 minutes.
If using a water-seal or 5-pound steam-pressure outfit, sterilize for 12 minutes.
If using a pressure cooker, sterilize for 8 minutes.
Remove jars and tighten covers.

Cool and store

Invert jars to cool and test the seal.
Wrap jars with paper to prevent bleaching and store.

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.

Plum + syruptop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together143 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Wild plums or damson plums: Provides the fruit that is preserved, supplying the flavor and texture of the finished jars.
Thin or medium boiling syrup: Fills the jars and carries sweetness while helping the fruit keep its shape and moisture.

“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.