Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Strawberry Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Pour the strawberry juice into a granite saucepan and boil until two-thirds has evaporated.
Add sugar to the remaining juice to taste, about 1 cup for each quart, and boil for an additional 20 minutes.
To test for jelling, place a small amount on a cold dish.
If it jellies, remove from heat and pour into glass pint jars, then seal.
For a clearer jelly, beat 1 egg white for each quart of juice and add it before heating.
When the mixture begins to boil, skim off the egg white and any impurities that rise to the top.
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.
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Strawberry juice
- Provides the base flavour and fruit solids that help the jelly set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and, at high concentration, helps it set into a firm gel.
- Egg white
- Clarifies the jelly by binding impurities as it heats, which are then skimmed off.
The step that matters
Testing for jelling on a cold dish. Sugar and fruit solids set into a gel only within a narrow concentration range. Cooking too little leaves the jelly runny, while cooking too long makes it stiff, so the cold-dish test shows when it is ready.
“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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