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Dessert

Compote of Pears

A sweet compote made with pears, cloves, wine, and sugar, served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 512 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Compote of Pears

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the roll

  1. Cut the French roll into thin slices.

  2. Toast or bake the slices until golden brown and dry.

  3. Crush the toasted slices into a coarse powder.

Cook the compote

  1. In an earthenware pot or enamelled saucepan, combine the crushed roll, water, cloves, and sliced pears.

  2. Cover and cook gently for 1 hour.

  3. Press the mixture through a sieve back into the pot.

  4. Add the white wine, lemon juice, and sugar.

  5. Stir well.

  6. Let it simmer for another 20 minutes.

Chill and serve

  1. Pour into a large bowl or glass dish and chill on ice before serving.

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. Pear + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Pear + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Pear + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together942 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pears
Break down into a soft pulp that gives the compote its body and fruity flavour.
French roll
Dried and crushed into powder, it thickens the mixture as it cooks and is pressed through a sieve.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the lemon and wine.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and keeps the pears fresh-tasting.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic flavour to the fruit.

The step that matters

Pressing through the sieve. Pressing the cooked pears and crumbs through a sieve forces out the soft pulp and gives a smooth, thick texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves the compote lumpy and watery.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, white wine, lemon, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, white wine, lemon, 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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