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Dessert

Arrack, or Rum Jelly

A citrus jelly made with lemon peel, lemon juice, syrup, rum, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and rum work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 367 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Arrack, or Rum Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup

  1. Rub the peel of 2 lemons on a large lump of sugar.

  2. Scrape the zest into ½ cup of syrup.

  3. Express the juice of 5 lemons, strain it, and add to the syrup.

Finish the jelly

  1. Add ⅓ cup of rum to the lukewarm syrup.

  2. Stir in 1 ounce of prepared isinglass and ice as usual.

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. Syrup + rumtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together367 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + rumtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,341 recipes

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

  3. Syrup + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Isinglass
Sets the liquid into a firm, wobbly gel as it cools.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the syrup.
Rum
Adds aroma and flavour to the jelly.
Syrup
Provides sweetness and body, and the base the other flavours are added to.

The step that matters

Adding the isinglass to the lukewarm syrup. Isinglass must be fully dispersed while the mixture is still warm, otherwise it clumps and will not set evenly. Adding it to syrup that is too hot or too cold, or stirring poorly, can leave lumps or a weak gel.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, rum. 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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