Name: Jim Jam
Ingredients: 5 pounds sugar; juice from 5 pounds currants; 1 quart red raspberry juice (about 6 boxes); 1 pound large raisins, seeded and halved; 2 seedless oranges, diced (peel included)

Why it works: Currant and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,180 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

Jim Jam

Ingredients

5 pounds sugar
juice from 5 pounds currants
1 quart red raspberry juice (about 6 boxes)
1 pound large raisins, seeded and halved
2 seedless oranges, diced (peel included)

Directions

Combine sugar, currant juice, raspberry juice, raisins, and diced oranges in a large pot.
Boil the mixture for 30 minutes.
Serve the jam with meats.

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.

Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Red raspberry + orangetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,684 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Red raspberry + raisintop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the jam set into a thick, spreadable texture.
Currants: Provide tart acidity and natural pectin that helps the jam thicken.
Red raspberries: Add fruity aroma and flavour to the jam.
Raisins: Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Oranges: Add citrus acidity and aroma, with peel contributing bitterness and aroma.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, red raspberry, raisin, orange):

Vanillafits better
Lemonfits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, red raspberry, raisin, orange. 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.