Why it works: Pear and bartlett pear share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 19 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Directions
Boil sour pies for 10 minutes.
Boil small sour pears for 30 minutes.
Boil Bartlett pears for 20 minutes.
Boil cherries for 5 minutes.
Boil raspberries for 6 minutes.
Boil plums for 10 minutes.
Boil blackberries for 6 minutes.
Boil strawberries for 8 minutes.
Boil whortleberries for 5 minutes.
Boil sliced pie-plant for 10 minutes.
Boil whole peaches for 15 minutes.
Boil peach halves for 8 minutes.
Boil whole crab apples for 25 minutes.
Boil ripe currants for 6 minutes.
Boil grapes for 10 minutes.
Boil sliced pineapples for 15 minutes.
Boil gooseberries for 8 minutes.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Pear + bartlett peartop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together19 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
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Pear + plumtop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together241 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
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Pear + appletop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together648 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
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Plum + peachtop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together161 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
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Plum + appletop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together398 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and helps preserve its shape and texture during boiling.
Flavor stand-ins for the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, pear, bartlett pear, plum, peach, crab, apple):
- Apricotbetter flavor fit
- Vanillabetter flavor fit
- Grapebetter flavor fit
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, pear, bartlett pear, plum, peach, crab, apple. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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