Why it works: Quince and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,444 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Quince Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the quinces
Stew the quinces until tender.
Press the cooked quinces through a sieve.
Use the prepared juice instead of water, if desired.
Make the paste
Reduce the sieved quinces to a dry paste over low heat, stirring constantly.
Weigh the fruit and mix it with an equal amount of pounded sugar.
Continue stirring until the mixture is dry enough to form a ball and pull away from the pan.
Set and store
Press the paste into shallow pans.
Let it cool.
Cut the cooled paste into small squares.
Dry the squares gently if needed.
Store the squares in a tin with parchment paper between layers.
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.
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Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,444 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Quinces
- Provide pectin and natural flavour, which help the paste set firm and hold its shape.
- Pounded sugar
- Sweetens the paste and helps it firm into a sliceable block as moisture evaporates.
The step that matters
Reducing the paste until it pulls away from the pan. Cooking over low heat while stirring constantly prevents scorching on the base. Stop only when the mixture forms a ball and leaves the pan, because the sugar and pectin set as the water evaporates, so underdone paste stays soft and overdone paste becomes stiff and sticky.
“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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