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 Preserve
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash and pit the plums.
Combine the plums and sugar in a pot.
Cook
Boil for 30 minutes.
Continue boiling for another 30 minutes.
Set
Press the mixture into shallow pans or molds.
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 flesh, natural pectin and flavor that form the preserve.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it while it thickens during boiling.
The step that matters
Boil until the mixture thickens. Sugar and fruit set through evaporation and pectin. Boiling for the full time concentrates the sugar and lets the pectin gel as the mixture cools, so stopping early can leave a runny preserve.
“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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