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Isinglass Jelly, Currant and Raspberry

A jelly made from red and white currants, raspberries, water, isinglass, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Red currant and white currant share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Isinglass Jelly, Currant and Raspberry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Bruise the currants and raspberries in a jar.

  2. Place the jar in boiling water to extract the juice.

  3. Allow the fruit juice to cool after straining.

Make the jelly

  1. Boil the water, isinglass, and sugar together.

  2. Mix equal quantities of the fruit juice and sweetened isinglass.

  3. Pour into shapes and place the jelly in ice.

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. Red currant + white curranttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. White currant + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together59 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Red currants
Provide the main tart flavour and colour of the jelly.
White currants
Add acidity and tartness to balance the sugar.
Red raspberries
Add aroma and fruity flavour to the juice.
Isinglass
Gelatinises the liquid so it sets into a firm jelly.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps it hold its set.

The step that matters

Mixing the fruit juice and sweetened isinglass. The isinglass must be dissolved and warm enough to mix evenly with the juice; if it cools or clumps before mixing, the jelly can set unevenly or cloudy. Keeping the mixture even ensures a uniform, clear set.

Swap the white currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (red currant, sugar):

  1. Raspberryfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. White currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red currant, sugar. 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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