Why it works: Plum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Plum Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the plums
Choose any kind of plums. If they are not ripe enough to pass through a sieve, boil them in water until tender.
Drain the plums and pass them through a fine sieve to extract the pulp.
Weigh the pulp and reduce it on the fire to half its volume.
Make the marmalade
For every pound of pulp, use 12 ounces of sugar.
Clarify the sugar and boil it until it reaches the soft ball stage.
Add the pulp to the sugar and continue boiling, stirring with a spatula.
When the mixture falls off the spatula like jelly, it is done.
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.
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Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,313 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Plum pulp
- Provides the fruit flavour and the bulk of the marmalade.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and, as it boils down, helps it set into a thick jelly.
The step that matters
Judging when the marmalade is done. Sugar and fruit pectin set into a jelly only at a high enough concentration. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while boiling too long can make it stiff and prone to scorching. Checking that it falls from the spatula like jelly helps you judge the set.
“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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