Why it works: Quince and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,444 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
To Can Quinces
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup and cook the quinces
Slice the quinces thinly like apples for pies.
In a pot, combine sugar and water, and bring to a boil.
Add the quinces to the boiling mixture and cook until clear and tender.
Jar and seal
Prepare jars with their lids and place them in a pan of boiling water.
Quickly fill the jars with the quinces and syrup, ensuring the syrup overflows.
Seal the jars tightly as quickly as possible.
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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Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,444 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
- Quinces
- Main fruit; cooking softens its firm flesh into tender, translucent slices.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and thickens the syrup, which helps the preserved fruit keep.
The step that matters
Filling and sealing the jars while hot. Hot fruit and syrup go into hot jars so the contents stay hot. Sealing before they cool lets a vacuum form as the contents cool, which is what keeps the lids sealed. Working quickly prevents the jars and fruit from cooling before sealing.
“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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