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Dessert

Ginger Pears

Pears cooked in a ginger and lemon syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make a syrup by boiling water and sugar together.

  2. Pare, core, and chop the pears.

  3. Add the juice of the lemons to the pears.

  4. Cook the yellow rind of the lemons in a little water until tender, then chop and add to the mixture.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil for three hours or until thick like marmalade.

  2. Pour into jelly glasses.

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 + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bartlett pear + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together83 recipes
  5. Bartlett pear + gingertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together22 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Bartlett pears
Provide the fruit that forms the bulk of the preserve and breaks down into a thick texture as it cooks.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, as it thickens with the fruit, helps it set into a spreadable consistency.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the flavour and supports setting, with the rind adding aromatic citrus notes.
Crystallized ginger
Adds warm, spicy aroma and a chewy bite throughout the preserve.

The step that matters

Boil for three hours or until thick like marmalade. Sugar and fruit must cook long enough to concentrate and thicken; stopping too early leaves a runny preserve, while overcooking can scorch the sugar and darken the flavour.

Swap the bartlett pear

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Bartlett pearthe original

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