Name: Pear and Quince Preserves
Ingredients: Pears; Quinces; Sugar

Why it works: Pear and quince match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 133 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Pear and Quince Preserves

Ingredients

Pears
Quinces
Sugar

Directions

Peel, halve, and core the pears. For quinces, peel, quarter, and core them.
Steam the fruit over boiling water until perfectly tender.
Measure the water used for steaming and add twice that amount of sugar.
Boil the mixture until thick, then add the steamed fruit without crowding.
Cook until the fruit is transparent.
Remove the fruit and boil down the syrup slightly, then pour it over the fruit.
Seal the jars while hot.

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.

Pear + quincetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together133 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,079 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,444 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).