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 Greengage or Blue Plums
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the plums
Wash and pierce the plums with a coarse needle.
Make the syrup
Dissolve the sugar in water, boil and skim it.
Pour the syrup over the plums in a jar and let them sit overnight.
Pour off the syrup into a preserving kettle and boil it briefly.
Cook and jar
Add the plums to the syrup and boil until tender.
Transfer the plums to small jars and seal.
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
- Plums
- Provide the fruit that softens and holds shape in the syrup.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it by drawing out water.
The step that matters
Boil the plums until tender. Boiling until the plums are just tender, not collapsed, keeps their shape and texture. Sugar concentration in the syrup also helps the fruit keep once sealed.
“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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