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Dessert

Hip Jam

A jam made from scarlet hips, clarified sugar syrup, white wine vinegar, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Hip Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hips

  1. Gather scarlet hips before they become soft.

  2. Lay hips on a clean cloth.

  3. Rub the hips carefully.

  4. Cut off stalks and crowns.

  5. Remove seeds with a small knife.

  6. Boil hips in water.

  7. Strain off the water.

  8. Rub the fruit through a sieve.

Make and pot the jam

  1. Boil the fruit in clarified sugar syrup, stirring constantly until thick.

  2. Once cold, add 2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar and 6 cloves for each quart of fruit.

  3. Transfer to jam pots.

  4. Cover with oiled paper.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

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

  3. White wine + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,715 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Scarlet hips
Provide the main fruit body, pulp, and flavour of the jam.
Clarified sugar syrup
Sweetens the jam and, once boiled down, helps it thicken and set.
White wine vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil the fruit in syrup until thick. Stirring constantly prevents the sugar and pulp from scorching on the base of the pan. The jam must be cooked long enough to reduce and thicken, since pectin and sugar only set properly at sufficient concentration.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rose, sugar, syrup, white wine, vinegar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Peppermintfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rose, sugar, syrup, white wine, vinegar. 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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