Why it works: Pear and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,079 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Pear Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pears
Pare, divide, and core the pears.
Boil the pears in enough water to cover them until tender.
Remove the pears and add the parings and cores to the same water; boil until reduced by half and strain.
Make the marmalade
Make a syrup with ¾ pound of sugar and 1 pint of the strained liquid for every pound of pears.
Boil the syrup until it jellies on a spoon, then add the pears and boil for a few minutes, stirring until smooth.
Transfer the marmalade to pots.
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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Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,079 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
- Pears
- Form the bulk of the marmalade, and their parings and cores release pectin that helps it set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and, as it boils down, thickens the syrup so it sets.
The step that matters
Boil the syrup until it jellies on a spoon. Sugar and pectin set only at a sufficient concentration. Stopping too early leaves the marmalade runny, while boiling too long makes it stiff and overly thick as it cools.
“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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