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Dessert

Pear Honey

A compote of pears, apples, and orange cooked with sugar until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 649 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Pear Honey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Peel and core the pears and apples, and remove the seeds from the orange.

  2. Grind the pears, apples, and orange together.

Cook the compote

  1. Add the sugar and cook for 20 minutes, stirring frequently.

  2. Add the grated orange rind and cook until thick.

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 + appletop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together649 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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 main bulk and body of the compote as they break down.
Apples
Add natural pectin that helps the compote set and thicken.
Orange
Adds acidity and aroma, and its rind brings fragrant citrus oils.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it cooks with the fruit, helps thicken the compote.

The step that matters

Stirring while the sugar cooks. Stir frequently once the sugar goes in, since the mixture can stick and scorch on the bottom of the pan. As water evaporates the compote thickens, so it needs attention to reach the right consistency without burning.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, apple, 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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