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 ↓
Wild Plum Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Extract the juice
Fill a preserving kettle with plums and cover them with water.
Bring to a boil until the plums begin to burst.
Drain off the water and discard it.
Refill the kettle with water and boil until the plums are soft.
Drain again and measure the plum juice.
Make the jelly
For every pint of juice, add ½ cup of sugar and cook until it jellies.
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
- Supply the juice, along with natural pectin and acid that help the jelly set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and, with pectin and acid, helps it set firmly.
The step that matters
Cook the sugar and juice until it jellies. Jelly sets only when sugar, pectin and acid reach the right concentration. Stopping early leaves it runny, while overcooking makes it stiff and sugary. Judge by the jelling point, not the clock alone.
“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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