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Dessert

Plum Conserve

A preserve made from damson plums, sugar, raisins, and orange pulp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 309 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Plum Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Remove the pits from the damson plums and chop the fruit using a food chopper.

Cook the preserve

  1. Combine the chopped plums, sugar, raisins, orange pulp, and grated rind in a large pot.

  2. Cook the mixture over medium heat until it reaches a proper consistency.

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. Plum + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Plum + raisintop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Damson plums
Provide the main fruit body and tart flavour that defines the preserve.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and helps it thicken and keep as it cooks down.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and body to the fruit mixture.
Oranges
Contribute acidity and citrus aroma from the pulp and grated rind.

The step that matters

Cooking until the proper consistency. Sugar and fruit pectin set as water evaporates, so stopping too early leaves a runny preserve while cooking too long can scorch the sugar and make it stiff. Stir steadily over medium heat to keep the bottom from catching.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, orange. 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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