Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Currant Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Pick currants on a dry day and make wine the same day.
Remove currants from stems, bruise, press, and strain to extract juice.
Add 2 gallons of pure soft water and 12 pounds of loaf sugar to every gallon of currant juice. Mix until sugar dissolves.
Ferment and age
Pour the mixture into a keg and let it ferment for 12 to 14 days, covering the bung-hole with coarse muslin.
After fermentation, beat the whites of 5 or 6 eggs and stir them into the cask.
Lightly place the bung on the keg at first, then secure it firmly on the second day, and cover with bottle cement on the third day.
Let it stand for 5 to 6 months, then rack it off.
If not clear, refine with isinglass, milk, or more egg whites.
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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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Currant + eggtop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,734 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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
- Currants
- Provide the juice and flavour that form the body of the wine.
- Loaf sugar
- Feeds the fermentation and supplies the sweetness and alcohol of the finished wine.
- Whites of 5 or 6 eggs
- Added to the cask to help clarify the wine as it settles.
The step that matters
Sealing the bung during fermentation. Fermentation gives off carbon dioxide and can push foam out of the keg. Covering the bung-hole loosely at first lets gas escape while keeping air and contaminants out, and the bung is then sealed more firmly as activity slows. A bung sealed too early can cause pressure to build up or the keg to burst.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Lemonfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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