Name: Peaches and Pears
Ingredients: Peaches; Pears; Sugar

Why it works: Peach and pear match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 114 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Peaches and Pears

Ingredients

Peaches
Pears
Sugar

Directions

Pare and core the peaches and pears.
Add enough sugar to make them palatable and let them sit to dissolve the sugar.
Heat the fruit to a boil and continue boiling for 20 to 30 minutes until heated through.
Prepare a kettle of hot water and dip the cans to heat them.
Fill the hot cans with the fruit and seal them immediately.

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.

Peach + peartop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together114 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,079 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,308 recipes

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