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Dessert

Jellied Pears

A gelatin set dessert of pears and ginger in syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Gelatin and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 192 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Jellied Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatin mixture

  1. Soak gelatin in cold water.

  2. Dissolve gelatin in the syrup from the pears heated to boiling point.

  3. Add ginger syrup, sugar, and lemon juice to the mixture.

  4. Strain the mixture.

  5. Cool the mixture.

Mold and set

  1. Cover the bottom of a small mold with pieces of pear and strips of ginger.

  2. Pour the mixture over the fruit.

  3. When firm, add more fruit and mixture, repeating until all is used.

  4. Chill.

  5. Remove from the mold.

Garnish

  1. Garnish with sweetened whipped cream flavored with pistachio and colored green if desired.

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. Gelatin + syruptop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together192 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Pear + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together452 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Granulated gelatin
Sets the syrup into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Pears
Supply the fruit pieces that are suspended in the set jelly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet syrup and pear flavor.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatin fully in hot syrup. Gelatin must dissolve completely in the hot syrup before cooling; undissolved granules leave grainy spots and uneven setting. Cooling too far before pouring can also cause the mixture to set unevenly in the mold.

Swap the pear

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (gelatin, syrup, ginger, sugar, lemon):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Pearthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, syrup, ginger, sugar, lemon. 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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