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Dessert

Compote of Pears

A compote made by simmering pears with sugar, allspice, and water until tender, then reducing the syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 164 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Compote of Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Pare and halve the pears, removing the core but leaving the stem.

  2. Place the pears in a stew pot with sugar, allspice, and water.

  3. Simmer gently for 3 to 4 hours until very tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Carefully lift the pears into a glass dish.

  2. Boil the syrup quickly for 2 to 3 minutes.

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. Pear + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + allspicetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,938 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

Pears
Their flesh softens during long simmering, becoming tender and absorbing the sweet syrup.
White sugar
Sweetens the dish and thickens the syrup as it reduces and concentrates.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pears and syrup.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 3 to 4 hours. Rapid boiling can break the pear halves apart before they turn tender. A gentle simmer softens the fruit evenly while keeping its shape intact.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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