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Quinces, Preserved Whole

Whole quinces preserved in a sugar syrup and apple jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Quince and apple work together. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Quinces, Preserved Whole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quinces

  1. Pare the quinces and scoop out the cores without opening them.

  2. Simmer the quinces in boiling water until soft.

  3. Drain the quinces on a sieve.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the liquor with 1 pound of sugar for every pound of fruit used.

  2. Pour the syrup over the quinces and leave until the next day.

  3. Carefully pour off the syrup.

  4. Add enough apple jelly to cover the quinces.

  5. Boil until clear.

Pack and set

  1. Place the quinces in 1-pound jars.

  2. Boil the remaining liquor until it jellies.

  3. Pour the jellied liquor over the fruit.

  4. Cover when cold.

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. Quince + appletop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  3. Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,444 recipes

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

Sugar and apple 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

Quinces
Main fruit; softened by simmering and set in jelly-like syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and helps the syrup thicken and preserve it.
Apple jelly
Adds natural pectin and sweetness so the liquor sets and turns clear.

The step that matters

Simmer the quinces until soft, then drain well. Quinces are very firm and need thorough cooking before syrup can penetrate. Draining removes surface water so the syrup stays concentrated and the fruit keeps its shape.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Apricotfits about as well
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, apple. 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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