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Dessert

Pear Conserve

A sweet preserve made from pears, sugar, raisins, nuts, lemon juice, and orange rind, boiled and served in jelly glasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Pear Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dice the pears and let them sit with the sugar overnight.

  2. Cut the raisins and orange rind into small pieces.

Cook and set

  1. Boil all the ingredients together for two hours.

  2. Add the nut meats and mix well.

  3. Pour into jelly glasses and cover with paraffin.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Pear + orangetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Pear + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together942 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pears
Provide the bulk of the preserve and its fruity body as they break down while cooking.
Granulated sugar
Draws moisture out of the fruit and, when boiled down, thickens the preserve and preserves it.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture as they soften during the long boil.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the flavor and supports the set of the preserve.
Oranges
Contribute aromatic oils from the rind and additional citrus flavor.

The step that matters

Boiling all the ingredients together for two hours. Sugar concentration and evaporation must reach a thick, spreadable consistency; too short a boil leaves the preserve runny and prone to spoiling, while overcooking can make it stiff and dark.

Swap the pear

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, raisin, meat, lemon, orange):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Pearthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, meat, lemon, orange. 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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