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Spiced Currants

A preserved currant dish flavored with cinnamon and cloves, sweetened with sugar and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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

  1. Combine currants, sugar, cider vinegar, cinnamon, and cloves in a kettle.

  2. Boil until the currants are soft.

  3. Skim out the currants and place them on dishes while the syrup thickens.

  4. Return the currants to the syrup and heat through.

  5. Seal the mixture hot in glass jars and store in a cool, dark place.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Currant + cidertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together500 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Currant + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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
Provide the fruit body and bulk of the preserve, softening as they cook.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, as it thickens into syrup, helps preserve the fruit.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Ground cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma to the syrup.

The step that matters

Skim out the currants while the syrup thickens. Removing the soft fruit lets the syrup reduce and thicken without overcooking the currants into mush. Returning them only to heat through keeps their shape and avoids a scorched, overly sticky result.

Swap the currant

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

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

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