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Quinces — Continued

A thick quince jam made by boiling quinces with sugar, water, egg white, alum, and cochineal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Quinces — Continued

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quinces

  1. Peel and quarter the quinces, removing the cores.

Make the syrup

  1. Combine the beaten egg white, water, and caster sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and skim well.

  3. Add the quinces and boil until reduced to a thick pulp.

  4. Pass the pulp through a fine sieve into another saucepan.

  5. Add the alum and boil gently for 2 minutes, skimming the syrup.

  6. Pass the syrup through the sieve again, return to the saucepan, and color with cochineal.

Reduce and jar

  1. Boil until thickly reduced, then pour into jars and let cool before sealing tightly.

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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,444 recipes

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

  3. Quince + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together222 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

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

What each ingredient does

Quinces
Provide the fruit pectin and flavor that give the jam its body and taste.
Crushed loaf sugar
Sweetens the jam and, as it reduces, helps it set into a thick preserve.
Beaten egg white
Its proteins rise to the surface when boiled, carrying impurities that are skimmed off to clarify the syrup.
Alum
Firms the fruit and helps the jam keep a clear, well-set texture.

The step that matters

Boil until thickly reduced. Jam sets only when enough water evaporates and sugar concentrates. Stopping too early leaves a runny preserve that may spoil, while overcooking can make it stiff and dull.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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