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Currant Punch

A punch made from red currants, sugar, ginger, lemon juice, and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Currant Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Macerate

  1. Crush the red currants with a wooden spoon.

  2. Add the loaf sugar and ground ginger, then let it stand overnight.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Finish

  1. Add the lemon juice and cold water.

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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Red currant + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Red currant + gingertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Red currants
Provide the main fruit juice, tartness and the punch's base flavor.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and draws juice out of the crushed currants as it dissolves.
Fresh ground ginger
Contributes a sharp, warm aroma and spicy bite that balances the fruit.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the punch and sharpens the sweetness.

The step that matters

Letting the currants stand overnight with the sugar and ginger. Sugar pulls liquid out of the crushed fruit by osmosis and dissolves into it, while the ginger's flavor steeps in. Skipping or shortening this rest leaves the punch weak and less fragrant.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, ginger, lemon):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, lemon. 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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