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Dessert

Strawberry

A preserve made from ripe strawberries, sugar, and thick syrup, then canned in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Strawberry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the strawberries

  1. Select ripe, firm strawberries and pick them the same day.

  2. Hull and rinse the strawberries.

  3. Place them in a shallow platter in a single layer.

  4. Sprinkle sugar over the strawberries.

  5. Pour 50% syrup over them.

  6. Cover with a glass dish or plain window glass.

  7. Allow to stand in the hot sun for 8 to 12 hours.

Pack and sterilize

  1. Pack into hot screw-top jelly glasses.

  2. Position the rubber and cap loosely.

  3. Sterilize according to the method used: Water bath for 20 minutes, Water seal at 214° for 15 minutes, or Steam pressure for 10 minutes.

  4. Tighten the covers after removing jars, invert to cool, and test the seal.

  5. Wrap jars in paper to prevent bleaching.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Syrup + strawberrytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together332 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + strawberrytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,060 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe firm strawberries
Provide the fruit, whose firmness holds shape through the long standing period.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and draws out juice, helping preserve the berries.
50° syrup (thicker than strawberry preserves)
Adds moisture and sweetness, thickening the fruit as it soaks in the sun.

The step that matters

Sterilize according to the method used. Sterilizing heats the jars and contents long enough to kill microorganisms that would spoil the preserves. Too short a time or too low a temperature can leave spoilage organisms alive, so the time must match the chosen method.

Swap the strawberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Strawberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup. 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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