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 ↓
Boiled Pears
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Peel the pears and remove any blemishes.
Ensure the pears are sound at the core.
Cook
Place the pears in a pot and cover them with water.
Boil slowly for 1 hour.
Add enough sugar to create a lively syrup.
Boil for an additional 30 to 45 minutes.
Serve
Serve the pears cold.
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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Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Hard pears
- Firm flesh holds its shape through long simmering, so the fruit softens without falling apart.
- Sugar
- Dissolves into the cooking liquid to form a syrup that sweetens the pears and adds body.
The step that matters
Boil slowly for 1 hour. A gentle simmer softens the dense flesh evenly. Boiling too hard can break the pears apart before the core is tender.
“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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