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Dessert

Preserved Quinces

A preserved quince recipe using sugar syrup and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Quince and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 164 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Preserved Quinces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare, quarter, and core the quinces.

Cook

  1. In a pot, combine 4 cups of water, 1 pound of sugar, and 3-4 whole cloves to make a syrup.

  2. Add the quinces to the syrup and cook until they turn red.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the preserved quinces.

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. Quince + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,444 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

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

Sugar and clove 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

Quinces
The fruit softens and takes on its red colour as it cooks in the syrup.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and, dissolved in water, forms a syrup that helps preserve the fruit.
Whole cloves
Adds a warm, spiced aroma to the syrup.

The step that matters

Cooking the quinces in the syrup until they turn red. Quinces are firm and need gentle, sustained heat in the syrup to soften through and take on colour. Cooking too briefly leaves them hard, while a hard boil can break the fruit apart.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against quince, 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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