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Plums, to Preserve

This recipe preserves plums by boiling them in a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Plums, to Preserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup

  1. In a preserving pan, combine the water and sugar, and boil to a thin syrup.

  2. Remove the stalks from the plums and prick them slightly to prevent breaking.

  3. Pour the prepared syrup over the plums and let them sit for 2 days.

Cook and pot

  1. Transfer the mixture back to the preserving pan and boil gently until the plums are tender.

  2. Carefully lift the plums into pots.

  3. Boil the syrup to the 'large thread' degree, then pour it over the plums.

  4. Cover the pots closely and store them in a cool, dry place.

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. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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
Main fruit; pricking and cooking soften its skin and flesh so it becomes tender.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, boiled into syrup, preserves it by drawing out moisture.
Water
Dissolves the sugar so it can form a thin syrup for soaking the fruit.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup to the 'large thread' degree. Sugar syrup must reach the right concentration to preserve the fruit. Too little boiling leaves it too thin to keep the plums well, while overboiling can make it crystallise.

“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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