Why it works: Guava and sugar work together. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 115 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Guava Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Pick over the guavas, cut off the ends, and slice them roughly.
Place the guavas in a large container with the water and boil quickly for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Remove from heat and strain the mixture to measure the juice.
Put the juice back on the fire and boil it.
Make the jelly
Add ½ cup sugar for every 2 cups of juice after boiling for 15 minutes.
Cook until it jells, watching carefully.
Pour into sterilized jars and do not disturb until cold.
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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Guava + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together115 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
- Guavas
- Provide the fruit flesh and natural pectin that help the juice set into a jelly.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and helps it set firm by binding water and pectin.
The step that matters
Cook until it jells. Overcooking can make the jelly stiff and dark, while undercooking leaves it runny. Sugar and pectin set only at the right concentration, so watch the mixture closely near the end.
“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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