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 ↓
Plum Preserve
Ingredients
Directions
Extract the juice
Extract juice from the plums and strain it through a jelly bag.
Boil and set
Weigh the juice and boil it rapidly for 25 minutes.
Add 3 lbs of sugar to the juice and stir until dissolved.
Continue boiling quickly for another 10 minutes, removing all scum.
Pour the preserve into small molds or pans and let it set.
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
- Plums
- Provide the fruit flavour and most of the body of the preserve.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the preserve and helps it set by drawing water away from the fruit.
The step that matters
Continue boiling quickly after adding the sugar. Sugar must dissolve fully and the mixture must reach a hot, concentrated state to set. Boiling only briefly leaves the preserve runny, while the scum removed during boiling would otherwise cloud the finished preserve and affect its appearance.
“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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