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 Preserves
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the plums
Wash and prick the plums, then place them in a jar.
Use equal amounts of sugar and fruit.
Make the syrup
Make a syrup with sugar and a little water.
Boil the syrup, skim it, and pour it over the fruit.
Drain off the syrup.
Boil the syrup, skim it, and return it to the fruit.
Repeat this process for three days.
Cook and seal
On the fourth day, combine the plums and syrup in a preserving kettle and boil slowly for half an hour.
Seal in cans.
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 that forms the body and flavor of the preserves.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and, in the syrup, helps preserve it.
The step that matters
Repeating the syrup boil over three days. Repeatedly draining, boiling and returning the syrup gradually draws sugar into the fruit and thickens the syrup. Rushing this can leave the fruit less sweet and less preserved.
“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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