Why it works: Sugar and pear are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,079 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Canned Pears
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup and pears
Heat the sugar with 1 quart of water until boiling.
Peel the pears and drop them into clean water to prevent browning.
Carefully add the pears to the boiling syrup and cook until clear and tender.
Jar and seal
Prepare canning jars by rolling them in hot water.
Pack the pears into the jars and fill with the hot syrup, sealing immediately.
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.
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Sugar + peartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,079 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
- Pears
- The main fruit, which softens and turns tender as it cooks in the syrup.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and syrup that fills the jars.
The step that matters
Peel the pears into clean water. Cut pear flesh is exposed to air, and its enzymes oxidize it, turning it brown. Keeping the peeled pears submerged in water slows this browning until they go into the syrup.
“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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