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Dessert

To Stew Pears

A dish of pears stewed with cloves, lemon peel, wine, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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To Stew Pears

Why it works: Pear and red wine work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 64 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

To Stew Pears

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Pare and quarter the pears, or leave them whole for a decorative presentation.

  2. Place the pears in a deep earthen pot.

  3. Add cloves, lemon peel, red wine, and sugar.

  4. If using large pears, increase sugar to ½ pound and red wine to ½ pint.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the pot tightly with brown paper.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until the pears are tender.

  3. Serve hot or cold, and you can substitute water for wine if desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + red winetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + red winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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
Form the dish's body and soften into a tender, spoonable texture when stewed.
Red wine
Liquid that cooks the pears and flavours the syrup, adding depth and colour.
Sugar
Sweetens the stewing liquid and balances the wine's tartness.
Cloves
Add warm, spiced aroma to the stewing liquid.
Lemon peel
Adds bright citrus aroma that lifts the wine and fruit flavours.

The step that matters

Cover the pot tightly and bake until tender. A tight cover traps steam and liquid so the pears cook gently in their own syrup. Without it the liquid evaporates and the pears dry out or cook unevenly, so check for tenderness rather than relying only on time.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, clove, red wine, 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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