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 ↓
English Guava
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Remove the stalks from the guavas and cut some of them.
Place the guavas and plums in stone jars.
Boil the jars in a water bath as directed.
Make the jam
Drain the juice and strain it through a jelly bag.
Weigh the juice and boil it quickly for 15 to 20 minutes.
Stir in ¾ pound of sugar for every pound of juice until dissolved.
Remove the scum and boil again for 8 to 12 minutes until it jellies.
Pour the preserve into shallow pans or small molds 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
- Guavas (in the method)
- Provides the main fruit flavour and natural pectin needed for the jam to set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jam and helps it set by binding water and concentrating the fruit.
- Imperatrice plums
- Add extra fruit flavour and body to the jam.
The step that matters
Boil again until it jellies. The second boil with sugar must concentrate the juice enough for the pectin and acid to form a gel. Stopping too early leaves the jam runny, while boiling too long makes it stiff and dull in colour.
“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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