Name: Jam, Mixed, for Nursery Use
Ingredients: equal weights of any seasonal fruit (gooseberries, red or black currants, raspberries, or cherries); ½ pound sugar for every pound of fruit pulp

Why it works: Black currant and sugar work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 393 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Jam, Mixed, for Nursery Use

Ingredients

equal weights of any seasonal fruit (gooseberries, red or black currants, raspberries, or cherries)
½ pound sugar for every pound of fruit pulp

Directions

Boil the fruit gently for 30 minutes.
Weigh the fruit and add ½ pound of sugar for every pound of pulp.
Boil for an additional 20 minutes.
If using cherries, boil them alone for 20 minutes before adding other fruits.

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.

Black currant + sugartop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together393 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Seasonal fruit: Provides the main flavor, natural acidity, and pectin that helps the jam set.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the jam set and keep, with the fruit's pectin and acid.

The step that matters

Boil for an additional 20 minutes. Boiling after the sugar is added drives off water and concentrates the mixture. Under-boiling can leave the jam too loose to set, while the sugar and pectin need enough heat to form a gel.

“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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Jam, Mixed, for Nursery Use