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Dessert

Preserve of the Magnum Bonum, or Mogul Plum

A preserve made from Mogul plums and sugar, boiled and flavored with blanched kernels.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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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 ↓

Preserve of the Magnum Bonum, or Mogul Plum

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook the fruit

  1. Prepare and weigh the plums.

  2. Boil the plums for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add sugar and finish

  1. Add half the weight of the plums in sugar and stir until dissolved.

  2. Continue boiling for an additional 10 minutes, skimming the preserve carefully.

  3. For added flavor, mix in blanched kernels from the fruit stones 2-3 minutes before removing from heat.

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. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Mogul plums
Provide the fruit body, pectin and acidity that give the preserve its structure and tang.
Sugar
Adds sweetness, draws out water to help preserve, and helps the mixture thicken as it boils.

The step that matters

Dissolve the sugar before the final boil. Sugar that is fully dissolved before the extended boil helps prevent grainy crystals and keeps the preserve smooth. Skimming during the last 10 minutes removes foam so the finished preserve looks clear.

“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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