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Dessert

Spiced Currants

A preserved fruit mixture of currants boiled with sugar, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Currants

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and stem the currants.

Cook

  1. In a kettle, combine the vinegar and sugar, stirring until dissolved.

  2. Add the currants and spices to the kettle.

  3. Boil the mixture for two hours, stirring often to prevent burning.

Serve

  1. Serve with cold 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.

  1. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Currants
Provides the fruit that softens and cooks down into the thick body of the preserve.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the mixture and thickens it as water evaporates during the long boil.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and gives the preserve its tang.
Ground cloves
Adds warm, pungent aroma to the preserve.
Ground cinnamon
Adds sweet, warm aroma that rounds out the spiced flavor.
Ground allspice
Adds a blended warm aroma that complements the cloves and cinnamon.

The step that matters

Stirring during the two-hour boil. The sugar-rich mixture thickens as water evaporates and can scorch on the bottom of the kettle. Frequent stirring spreads the heat evenly and keeps it from burning.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, clove, cinnamon, allspice):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, clove, cinnamon, allspice. 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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