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Peaches, Pears, Etc

A preserved fruit mixture of peaches and pears cooked with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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, Pears, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the fruit.

  2. If using pears, preserve them whole.

  3. If using peaches, halve and remove the stones.

Cook

  1. Boil the fruit in water until soft.

  2. Add sugar and stew for 20 to 30 minutes, stewing pears the longest.

Seal

  1. Seal in glass jars while hot.

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. Peach + peartop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together114 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches
Provide the main fruit flavour and a soft, juicy texture when stewed.
Pears
Firmer fruit that needs longer stewing to soften, adding body and texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the fruit.

The step that matters

Stewing time. Pears are firmer and need longer to soften, while peaches break down quickly. Stewing them together for the same time can leave the peaches mushy or the pears hard. Check the fruit for tenderness and time the pears separately if needed.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, 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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