Why it works: Quince and sugar 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 ↓
Quince Stewed with Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Peel and core the quinces, then cut them into quarters.
In a stewpan, layer the quinces with sugar, placing sugar on top and bottom.
Add just enough water to moisten the sugar.
Stew and set
Shake the pan until the mixture boils, then cook gently, stirring occasionally, until the quinces are tender.
Let cool; the syrup should be thick and jelly-like.
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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Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Quinces
- Provide the fruit body and flavour, softening into tender pieces as they cook.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and, as it dissolves and concentrates, thickens the syrup into a jelly-like set.
The step that matters
Cooking gently until tender. Boiling hard or stirring too much can break the quince pieces apart and make the syrup cloudy. Gentle heat softens the fruit evenly while the sugar slowly concentrates into a thick syrup.
“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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