Why it works: Gooseberry and sugar work together. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 131 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Green Gooseberry Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pick the green gooseberries and place them in a copper preserving pan.
Add just enough water to reach halfway up the fruit.
Cook
Cover the pan and boil gently until the gooseberries begin to burst.
Remove the pan to the side of the stove and let it sit.
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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Gooseberry + sugartop 25% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together131 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
- Green gooseberries
- Provide the fruit body, natural pectin for setting, and tart flavour.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the jam set and keep well.
The step that matters
Boil gently under a cover until the gooseberries burst. Gentle heat softens the fruit and releases its pectin without scorching. The lid traps steam so the fruit cooks in its own moisture with little added water, which helps prevent sticking and burning on the base of the pan.
“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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