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To Preserve Pears

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Preserve Pears

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pare the pears very thin and simmer them in a thin syrup.

  2. Let them sit for a day or two.

  3. Make the syrup richer and simmer again, repeating until the pears are clear.

  4. Drain and dry the pears in the sun or a cool oven for a short time.

  5. Store them in syrup and dry as needed for moisture and richness.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, sugar, clove, allspice, red wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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