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Dessert

Chopped Quinces

A preserve made by stewing quince squares with water, sugar, and simmering until the syrup thickens.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Quince and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,444 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Chopped Quinces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and stew

  1. Pare the quinces and cut them into small squares.

  2. Cover the quinces with water and stew until tender.

  3. Pour the mixture into a colander and drain.

Make the jam

  1. For each pint of juice, add ¾ pint of sugar.

  2. Let the mixture boil and skim well for 10 to 15 minutes.

  3. Add the quinces and cook until the syrup begins to jell.

Jar

  1. Pour into glasses and seal like jelly.

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 + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,444 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

Quinces
Supply natural pectin and fruit flavour that help the jam set.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and, concentrated with the juice, helps it gel and keep.

The step that matters

Cooking until the syrup begins to jell. Pectin and sugar form a gel only when the syrup is concentrated enough. Stop too early and the jam stays runny; boil too long and it turns stiff and may darken. Testing for the first signs of setting prevents both problems.

“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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