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Dessert

Quince Preserve

A preserve made from quinces, citrus, and sugar, cooked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Quince and orange work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 152 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Quince Preserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Pare and core the quinces, then cut them into quarters or eighths.

  2. For each quart of quinces, add 2 sliced oranges or 1 sliced lemon.

  3. Mix the fruit and steam until tender, being careful not to break them.

Make the pectin water

  1. Boil the skins and cores in enough water to cover for 2 hours.

  2. When the water thickens, strain it.

Make and seal the preserve

  1. Add 1 pound of sugar for each pound of fruit and make a syrup.

  2. Add the fruit to the syrup.

  3. Simmer for 1 hour over low heat.

  4. Put the preserve into cans and seal.

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 + orangetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 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).

Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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
Firm fruit rich in natural pectin, which helps the preserve set.
Oranges or lemon
Adds acidity and aroma, and helps the pectin set.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and thickens it into a spreadable gel.

The step that matters

Thickening the pectin water. The skins and cores release pectin into the water, and it must be reduced until it thickens before straining. This pectin-rich liquid helps the preserve set, so a thin or weak liquid can leave the final preserve runny.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, 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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