Why it works: Sugar and mutton work together. They rank in the top 34% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 726 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Baked Damsons for Winter Use
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a rather cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare the fruit
Choose sound, not too ripe damsons and remove the stalks.
Place the damsons in large dry stone jars, sprinkling the sugar among them.
Bake
Cover the jars with saucers and bake in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C) until tender, about 6 hours.
Seal and store
Once cooled, cover the fruit with a piece of white paper cut to size.
Pour melted mutton suet over the paper, about 1 inch thick.
Seal the jars with thick brown paper, tied down securely.
Store the jars in a cool, dry place; the fruit will last until the following Christmas.
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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Sugar + muttontop 34% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together726 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Damsons
- Provide the fruit that becomes tender and sweet during long, slow baking.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it during long storage.
- Mutton suet
- Forms a solid fat layer that seals the jar surface against air and spoilage.
The step that matters
Baking until tender in a cool oven. Slow, low heat softens the fruit evenly without bursting the skins or scorching the sugar. Too hot a bake can break the fruit down unevenly, and underbaking leaves it firm and less well preserved.
“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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