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Dessert

Jim Jam Conserve

A preserve made from currant juice, raspberry juice, raisins, sliced oranges, orange rind, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Raspberry and orange work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 521 recipes. Both carry damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Jim Jam Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Combine currant juice, raspberry juice, raisins, sliced oranges, and orange rind in a porcelain-lined kettle over medium heat.

  2. Place sugar in a shallow drip pan and warm it in the oven at 350°F (175°C).

Cook and set

  1. Cook the fruit mixture for about 45 minutes.

  2. Add the hot sugar to the fruit mixture and allow it to boil as you would for jelly.

  3. Pour the conserve into jelly glasses.

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. Raspberry + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together521 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Currant + raspberrytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together366 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  3. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides sweetness and, when boiled with the fruit, helps the mixture thicken and set.
Raisins
Add body and sweetness, and their pectin-free pulp helps give the conserve a thick texture.
Currant juice
Supplies tart acidity and fruit flavour, and its natural pectin helps the jam set.
Raspberry juice
Adds fruity aroma and flavour and contributes liquid that cooks down into the jam.

The step that matters

Adding the hot sugar to the fruit. Sugar must dissolve and the mixture must reach a full rolling boil so that pectin and acid can set the jam. Warming the sugar keeps the pot from cooling down and stalling the boil.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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