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Pear and Quince Marmalade

A marmalade made from pears and quinces simmered with sugar, lemon juice, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and quince match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 133 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Pear and Quince Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Pare and core the pears and quinces, then place them in cold water.

  2. Simmer the pears and cores in a little cold water to make syrup.

  3. Once the pears are well boiled, strain off the liquid.

Make the marmalade

  1. When the syrup is cold, add the fruit and bring to a quick boil.

  2. Boil until smooth, then add the sugar and lemon juice.

  3. Cook steadily for an hour, stirring with a spoon until it reaches a rich jelly consistency.

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. Pear + quincetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together133 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Quince + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together336 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Pear + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together942 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Their high pectin helps the marmalade set into a firm, jelly-like texture.
Pears
They provide the bulk of the fruit and a mild, sweet flavour to the marmalade.
Sugar
Sugar thickens the mixture and helps it set while preserving the fruit.
Lemons
Lemon juice adds acidity that brightens flavour and supports the set.

The step that matters

Cook steadily until the jelly sets. Adding sugar and lemon juice too early or cooking too briefly can leave the fruit too loose. Sugar and acid need sustained heat to help the pectin gel into a firm, jelly-like consistency.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, quince, 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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