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Dessert

Red Currants

A preserved fruit product made by boiling red currants with vinegar and storing them in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and red currant work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 47 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Red Currants

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the currants

  1. Select red currants just before they reach perfect color, ensuring they are clear and sound.

  2. Boil the currants with the vinegar until the color changes.

  3. Skim the mixture well and let it cool.

  4. Strain the mixture and press the fruit in a sieve to extract color.

Clarify and jar

  1. Boil again and skim until clear.

  2. Place the currants in glass jars and pour the hot liquid over them to cover completely.

  3. Seal jars with paper and bladder.

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. White wine + red curranttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together47 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Sugar + red curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + white winetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,586 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 flavor and the color that the boiling draws out.
White wine or vinegar
Adds acidity that gives a tart flavor and helps preserve the fruit.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the fruit by binding water.
Bay leaves
Add a subtle aroma to the preserved liquid.

The step that matters

Covering the currants with hot liquid. Fruit left above the liquid can spoil, so the hot liquid must cover every currant fully before sealing. Hot liquid also helps drive out air that would otherwise encourage mold.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, white wine. 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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