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Compote of Pears, a LA Princesse

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and angelica match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 189 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Compote of Pears, a LA Princesse

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Select 7 pears of equal size and scrape the stalks.

  2. Turn the pears spirally from head to stalk.

  3. Simmer the pears in syrup with a little lemon juice to keep them white.

  4. Once done, steep the pears in their syrup.

  5. Cut off the pointed ends of the pears, leaving about ½ inch of the stalk ends.

  6. Place a ring of angelica on each stalk end.

  7. Set a large strawberry or stoned cherry on top, having passed it through hot syrup.

  8. Run a strip of angelica through all to imitate the stalks.

  9. When serving, pour some syrup over the compote.

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 + angelicatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together189 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Pear + strawberrytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Pear + angelicatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together39 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Angelica + strawberrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12 recipes

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

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

Swap the strawberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, syrup, lemon, angelica):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Strawberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, syrup, lemon, angelica. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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