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Dessert

Preserved Pears, for Dessert

Pears are preserved with black plums and sugar for dessert.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and plum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 245 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Preserved Pears, for Dessert

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Gather good pears in early October for preserving.

  2. Peel, halve, and core the pears.

  3. Soak the pears in cold water.

  4. In a skillet, combine the pear parings and cores with double their weight of ripe black plums.

  5. Cover with cold water and boil slowly until the liquid is flavored and slightly pink, then strain it.

Make the syrup and preserve

  1. Place the pears in the skillet with ¾ pound of powdered sugar for every pound of pears.

  2. Cover the pears with the strained liquid and simmer gently until tender but not soft.

  3. Remove the pears and place them in pots.

  4. Boil the syrup rapidly until thick and bright, then pour it over the pears.

  5. Allow to cool, then tie the pots and label them.

  6. Store in a dry closet.

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. Pear + plumtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. 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

Pears
Provide the main fruit, which turns tender and holds its shape when simmered gently.
Powdered loaf sugar
Sweetens the fruit and thickens the syrup, helping preserve it.
Common black plums
Add flavor and a pink color to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer the pears gently until tender but not soft. Rapid boiling breaks down pear flesh and makes it mushy, while gentle simmering softens the fruit and lets it keep its shape in the syrup.

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits about as well
  3. Plumthe original
  4. Apricotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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