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Preserve

Scarlet Strawberries

Strawberries layered with sugar and red currant juice, then slowly cooked in a preserving pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and red currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,156 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Scarlet Strawberries

Ingredients

Directions

Layer the fruit

  1. Cover the bottom of a preserving pan with beat sugar.

  2. Pack a layer of strawberries neatly on top.

  3. Cover the strawberries with more sugar.

  4. Add another layer of fruit.

  5. Repeat the layering process.

  6. Add 1 pint of red currant juice.

Draw out the sugar

  1. Cover the fruit with a sheet of paper.

  2. Place the pan on a warm part of the stove, not directly on the fire.

  3. Let it stand until the sugar is nearly melted.

  4. Gently shake the pan.

Simmer and skim

  1. Simmer carefully on the edge of the stove.

  2. Turn the pan as it simmers.

  3. Skim off any scum with a wooden skimmer.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Strawberries
Provide the main fruit, flavour and bulk of the preserve.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and draws out its juice, helping preserve it and thicken the syrup.
Red currant juice
Adds tartness and extra liquid, balancing the sweetness and aiding setting.

The step that matters

Simmer gently on the edge of the stove. Fruit boiled hard breaks down and turns cloudy and mushy, and sugar near direct fire can scorch. Gentle heat keeps the berries whole and lets the syrup thicken evenly while scum is skimmed off.

“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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