Why it works: Plum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
To Preserve Fruit for Tarts
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Gather ripe cherries, plums, or American apples and place them in small jars.
Sprinkle 6 oz. of pounded loaf sugar over each jar.
Cover each jar with 2 tied bladders.
Cook and store
Place the jars in a large stewpan filled with water up to the neck.
Boil gently for 3 hours.
Store the jars in a dry place.
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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Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,313 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
- Cherries, plums, or american apples
- Provide the fruit that softens and holds its flavour during gentle cooking.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it by drawing out moisture.
The step that matters
Boil gently for 3 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the water from churning and letting steam or water into the jars, so the fruit cooks evenly without the bladder seals loosening. A hard boil risks splashing water into the jars and spoiling the preserve.
“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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