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Raspberry and Currant Jelly Tart

A savory sauce of clams, cheese, peppers, and spices served over crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Raspberry and Currant Jelly Tart

Ingredients

Directions

Make the milk custard

  1. Heat the milk in a pot until hot.

  2. Pour a little hot milk onto the beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Return the egg mixture to the pot, add seasoning, and simmer for one minute.

Prepare the serving dish

  1. Place grated cheese in the bottom of a serving dish.

Make the clam sauce

  1. In a large pot, combine clam liquor, water, peppers, mace, celery, and salt; boil for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture and return it to the pot with the clams.

  3. Cover and boil for 3 minutes.

  4. In another pot, heat the milk, stir in rice flour mixed with cold water, and add butter.

  5. Pour this mixture into the clam pot, season with pepper, currant jelly, catsup, and claret.

  6. Thicken slightly with browned flour and boil to mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the meat, basting frequently for half an hour.

  2. Serve the gravy in a sauceboat or in the serving dish with crackers at the bottom.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together840 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and the meat of the dish.
Eggs
Thicken the milk mixture into a smooth, richer custard base.
Milk
Forms the creamy body of the sauce.
Rice flour
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity tang that balances the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture back to the hot milk. If hot milk is poured into the eggs too quickly or the mixture is overheated, the eggs can scramble. Adding a little hot milk first gently raises the eggs' temperature so they thicken smoothly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, cheese, clam, butter, pepper, celery):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, cheese, clam, butter, pepper, celery. 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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