Why it works: Currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓
Cureant Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Make the jelly
Jam and strain the currants.
For each pint of juice, add 1 pound of sugar.
Boil the juice for 15 minutes without sugar, then add the sugar and boil for the same time.
Strain into glasses.
Fill the jars
To pour hot jelly into jars, wet a towel with cold water and place it on the table.
Set the cold jars on the towel and pour the boiling jelly into them.
Do not place two jars on the same spot without wetting the towel first.
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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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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 natural pectin and acidity that give the juice its jelly-setting structure.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the juice and helps the jelly set firm when boiled with it.
The step that matters
Boil the juice before adding the sugar. Boiling the juice alone for 15 minutes concentrates it and draws out pectin before sugar is added. Adding sugar at the start would slow this and can prevent a proper set.
“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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