Why it works: Sugar and plum 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 Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Start the syrup
Wet the sugar with a small amount of water.
Bring the sugar to a boil and skim off any foam.
Cook the plums
Add the plums and boil for twenty minutes, skimming again as needed.
Remove as many stones as possible.
Jar
Transfer the jam to jars.
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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Sugar + plumtop 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
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and, with boiling, thickens the fruit into a spreadable jam.
- Plums
- Provide the fruit flavour, acidity and natural pectin that helps the jam set.
The step that matters
Boiling the plums for twenty minutes. Boiling drives off water and concentrates the sugar and fruit so the jam thickens. Too short a boil leaves it runny, while overlong boiling can scorch the sugar and darken the flavour.
“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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