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To Stew Pears

Pears stewed with cloves, sugar, and water, then served with syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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To Stew Pears

Why it works: Pear and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 512 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Stew Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare the pears and stick a clove in the blossom end.

  2. Place them in a deep earthen pot with water and sugar.

  3. Add a penny worth of cloves and a new pewter spoon in the middle.

  4. Cover with the pear parings and tie strong brown paper over the top.

Stew and serve

  1. Let them stew all night.

  2. If the syrup is too thin, boil it with a little red wine and sugar.

  3. When cold, pour the syrup over the pears.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pear + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

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

  3. Clove + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

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

Clove and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Largest stewing pears
Form the main body of the dish, softening into tender fruit during the long stew.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps thicken it as it reduces.
Cloves
Add a warm, aromatic spice flavor that infuses the pears and syrup.

The step that matters

Letting the pears stew all night. Slow, long, gentle cooking is what softens dense pear flesh and lets sugar and spice penetrate. Too fast or too hot a heat can break the fruit apart before it becomes tender.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, sugar. 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.

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