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Dessert

Spiced Pears

A preserved pear dish cooked in a spiced syrup of ginger, brown sugar, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pears

  1. Wipe the pears.

  2. Cut the pears in half.

  3. Remove the seeds from the pears.

  4. Peel the pears.

  5. Stick three cloves into each pear half.

Make the spiced syrup

  1. Mix the remaining spices and divide the spices into two parts.

  2. Tie the spice portions in small pieces of cheesecloth.

  3. Make a syrup by heating the sugar, vinegar, water, spices, and lemon rind until boiling.

  4. Add the pears to the boiling syrup.

  5. Heat the mixture to boiling point again.

  6. Remove the mixture from heat.

  7. Carefully transfer the mixture to a stone jar.

  8. Let the mixture stand for 24 hours.

Repeat the syrup soaking

  1. In the morning, drain the syrup from the pears.

  2. Heat the drained syrup gradually to boiling point.

  3. Pour the hot syrup over the pears.

  4. Let the pears stand for another 24 hours.

  5. Repeat this process for four consecutive days.

  6. On the last day, cook the syrup down until just enough to cover the fruit.

  7. Add the pears to the syrup.

  8. Heat to boiling point.

  9. Return to the jar.

  10. Cover.

Finish in one day

  1. To finish in one day, cook the pears in the syrup until tender.

  2. Drain the pears.

  3. Cook the syrup slowly down to the required amount.

  4. Add the fruit.

  5. Finish as above.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Pears
Form the main body of the preserve, softening and absorbing the spiced syrup as they stand.
Brown sugar
Provides sweetness and thickens the syrup into a preserving liquid as it cooks down.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the fruit.
Cinnamon stick
Adds warm aromatic flavour to the syrup.
Whole cloves
Add pungent aroma and spice flavour pushed into the pear halves.
Ginger root
Adds a sharp, warming aroma and flavour to the syrup.

The step that matters

Repeated boiling and soaking of the syrup. Each reheating must bring the syrup to a full boil before pouring it back over the fruit. Heating fully and repeatedly concentrates and sterilises the liquid, while the fruit slowly absorbs the sugar and spice, so skipping or shortening a boil leaves the pears under-flavoured and less well preserved.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ginger, sugar, pear, clove, cinnamon, vinegar, allspice):

  1. Quincefits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, sugar, pear, clove, cinnamon, vinegar, allspice. 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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