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To Preserve Whole or Half Quinces

A method for preserving whole or halved quinces in a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and quince are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,444 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

To Preserve Whole or Half Quinces

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pippin jelly

  1. Boil the sliced pippins in boiling water, covered, until the water becomes a thick jelly.

Prepare the quinces

  1. Scald the quinces.

Make the syrup and cook the quinces

  1. For every pint of pippin jelly, add 1 pound of sugar and boil, skimming it clear.

  2. Add whole quinces to the syrup and boil fast.

  3. Add halved quinces separately.

  4. Test the syrup for jelling 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. Sugar + quincetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,444 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

Golden pippins
Their natural pectin turns the cooking water into a jelly that sets the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and, with the pectin, helps it set and preserves the fruit.
Quinces
Supply the main fruit flavour and firm flesh that holds its shape during long cooking.

The step that matters

Testing the syrup for jelling. Pectin, sugar and acid only set together at the right concentration. Removing the syrup too early leaves it runny, while cooking it too long makes it stiff and dull.

“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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