Why it works: Crab and sugar work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 407 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells grass, green. The science ↓
Apple Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Wash the apples and quarter them if very large.
Place the apples in a pot and cover with plenty of water.
Boil until reduced to pulp, then strain through a jelly bag.
Make the jelly
For every pint of juice, add one pound of sugar.
Boil the mixture again for 10 to 15 minutes until it jellies.
To test for jelling, place a small amount on a saucer to cool.
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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Crab + sugartop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together407 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Apples
- Provide natural pectin and acid that help the juice set into a jelly.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and, with pectin and acid, helps the jelly firm as it cools.
The step that matters
Testing for jelling. Jelly sets only when sugar, pectin and acid reach the right concentration. Boiling too briefly leaves it runny, while overcooking can make it stiff. A cooled saucer test shows whether it will set before the pot is removed from heat.
“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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