Skip to main content
Dessert

Pickled Pears

A sweet and sour pickle made by cooking pears in vinegar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Pickled Pears

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Pickled Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine vinegar, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Cook the pears

  1. Peel the pears and cut them in half if large, removing the core.

  2. Insert cloves into the pears.

  3. Add a layer of pears to the syrup.

  4. Cook the pears until tender.

  5. Remove the pears.

  6. Repeat with another layer until all are cooked.

Jar and seal

  1. Fill jars with the syrup.

  2. Seal the jars.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Pear + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together600 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Pear + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pears
Provide the fruit that becomes tender and absorbs the flavour of the syrup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the syrup its sharp, tangy character.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, balancing the acidity of the vinegar.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the syrup.

The step that matters

Cook the pears until tender. Pears must be cooked through so they soften and absorb the syrup, but overcooking breaks down their structure and makes them mushy.

Swap the pear

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Quincefits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Pearthe original

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

More pickled pears recipes

Sweet 11and Peaches 5 See all 31 →

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes