Why it works: Sugar and plum are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Canned Plums
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Make a rich syrup by dissolving the sugar in enough water.
Add the plums to the syrup and gently shake the kettle to prevent them from breaking.
Cook the plums until tender.
Pack and seal
Carefully lift the plums out and place them in a can, draining off all the juice.
Cook the juice until it thickens to a jelly consistency.
Pour the jelly over the plums and seal the can.
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.
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Sugar + plumtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,313 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
- Sugar
- Dissolved into the water to make a syrup that sweetens the plums and thickens the juice into jelly.
- Plums
- Provide the fruit, which softens as it cooks and is packed in the can.
The step that matters
Cook the juice until it thickens to a jelly consistency. Sugar and fruit pectin set into a jelly only when the juice reaches the right concentration; undercooked juice stays runny and can leave the fruit poorly set.
“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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