Why it works: Plum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
To Preserve Fruit for Tarts, or Family-desserts
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the jars
Gather ripe cherries, plums, or American apples.
Place the fruit in small jars that hold 1 pound each.
Sprinkle 6 ounces of pounded sugar over each jar.
Cover each jar with 2 bladders, tied down securely.
Cook
Set the jars in a large pot of water up to the neck and boil.
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.
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Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,313 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
- Sugar
- Draws water out of the fruit and sweetens it, helping it keep.
- Cherries, plums, or american apples
- Supply the fruit flavor and the soft pulp that the preserve is made from.
The step that matters
Boiling the jars in water up to the neck. The heat must reach through the jar to the fruit and sugar so the contents are cooked and sealed. The covering must be tied down tightly so air and moisture cannot get in while the jars cool.
“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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