Why it works: Red currant and sugar 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 ↓
To Preserve the Pulp of Red Currants
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Place the red currants and raspberries in a large pan with water.
Using clean hands, thoroughly bruise the fruit to crush every berry.
Remove any stalks that gather in your hands.
Press and sweeten
Use a fruit pressing machine to extract the juice or pulp into a large earthen pan.
Add 4 ounces of pounded sugar for every pound of pulp and stir until incorporated.
Bottle
Fill pint bottles with the mixture, cork them, and secure with wire.
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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Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Red currants
- Provide the main tart flavour and the pulp that forms the base of the preserve.
- Raspberries
- Add aroma and a softer, sweeter fruit flavour alongside the currants.
- Pounded sugar
- Sweetens the pulp and helps preserve it by binding water that would otherwise support spoilage.
The step that matters
Bruising the fruit. Every berry must be crushed so the pulp releases its juice and pectin for pressing. Whole berries left unbroken yield less juice and an uneven, less stable pulp.
“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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