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Dessert

Pickled Pears

A preserved fruit dish made by boiling pears with sugar, vinegar, cloves, and cinnamon, then jarred and stored.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Pickled Pears

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pickled Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pickle

  1. Combine pears, sugar, vinegar, cloves, and cinnamon in a large pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

Jar and store

  1. Pour the hot mixture into sterilized jars and seal immediately.

  2. Store in a cool, dark place for at least a month before using.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Pear + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together600 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Pear + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Pears
Form the main body of the pickle and absorb the syrup as they cook and sit.
Sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar and helps preserve the fruit by drawing out moisture.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the pickle its tang and helps keep it stable in jars.
Cloves
Add a warm, aromatic spice flavor to the syrup.
Cinnamon
Adds sweet, woody aroma and warmth to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Dissolving the sugar before jarring. Stirring until the sugar fully dissolves in the hot vinegar ensures an even syrup. Undissolved sugar can crystallize or leave the pears unevenly sweetened and cloudy.

Swap the pear

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Quincefits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Pearthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, clove, cinnamon. 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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