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Dessert

Jim Jam

A sweet preserve made from crab apples, raisins, oranges, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Jim Jam

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the crab apples, vinegar, raisins, oranges, sugar, and water in a large pot.

  2. Place the cinnamon and cloves in a spice bag and add to the pot.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil and cook until thickened.

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.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Orange + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Crab apples
Provide pectin and tart fruit body that gives the jam its structure as it cooks down.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and, as it concentrates, helps it thicken and set.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and body to the jam as they soften during cooking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and supports pectin setting.

The step that matters

Cooking until thickened. Jam sets when enough water evaporates and sugar and pectin reach the right concentration. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and dull in flavour.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Quincefits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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