Why it works: Grape and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,490 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Wild Grape Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Wash and pick the grapes from the stems just before they are ripe.
Place the grapes in a porcelain-lined kettle with a little water to prevent burning.
Stew the grapes for a few moments, then mash gently with a silver spoon.
Strain the mixture to extract the juice.
Make the jelly
For every pint of juice, add 1 pound of white sugar.
Boil the juice for 20 minutes.
Stir in the sugar until fully dissolved without boiling again.
Pour the jelly into glasses immediately.
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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Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,490 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Grapes
- Provide the pectin, acid and flavour that the jelly sets and tastes of.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and helps it set to a firm, spreadable texture.
The step that matters
Boil the juice for 20 minutes. Boiling concentrates the juice and drives off water so the sugar and natural pectin can set. Stirring in sugar after boiling, as the record says, keeps the sugar dissolved without a second long boil that could darken or toughen the jelly.
“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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