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Dessert

Stewed Pears

Stewed pears are pears cooked in water and brown sugar until skins wrinkle, then stored for later use.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,079 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Stewed Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the pears, leaving the skins and stems on.

  2. Place the pears in a porcelain kettle and nearly cover them with water.

  3. Add ½ pound of brown sugar for each pound of fruit.

Stew and store

  1. Stew the pears until the skins begin to wrinkle.

  2. Store in a jug for later use; they will keep for a few days.

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 + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 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
Provide the main fruit, which softens and turns tender as it stews.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a rich caramel flavour to the cooking liquid and fruit.

The step that matters

Stew the pears until the skins begin to wrinkle. Stewing too briefly leaves the flesh firm, while overcooking causes the fruit to collapse. Watching the skins signals that the pears have softened through without breaking apart.

“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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