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Dessert

Quince Preserves

A sweet preserve made by cooking quince with sugar and water until thickened.

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 ↓

Quince Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Wash, peel, and cut the quinces into quarters or eighths, removing the cores.

  2. Save the cores and peelings for jelly.

  3. Weigh the fruit and measure out an equal amount of sugar.

  4. Place the quinces in a kettle and add enough water to cover them.

Cook and sweeten

  1. Cover the kettle and cook until the quinces are tender, testing with a fork.

  2. Remove the quinces and reserve half of the cooking water for jelly.

  3. Add the sugar to the remaining water in the kettle and stir until dissolved.

  4. Return the quinces to the kettle and simmer until the juice thickens.

Jar and seal

  1. When partially cool, pour the preserves into jars and seal tightly.

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
Provide the fruit body and pectin-rich flesh that sets the preserves as they cook.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, with simmering, thickens the juice into a syrup.

The step that matters

Simmering until the juice thickens. Sugar and fruit pectin set as water evaporates. Stopping too early leaves a runny preserve, while overcooking can make it stiff and dark.

“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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