Name: Spiced Currants
Ingredients: 3 pounds sugar; 1 pint vinegar; 2 tablespoons cinnamon; ½ teaspoon salt; 6 pounds currants

Why it works: Sugar and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Spiced Currants

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

Make a syrup by combining sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, and salt in a pot.

Cook and store

Add currants to the syrup and bring to a boil.
Boil for 30 minutes.
Remove from heat and let cool before storing.

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.

Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Vinegar + curranttop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together693 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Cinnamon + curranttop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,099 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Vinegar + cinnamontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,187 recipes

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

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: Form the fruit base of the preserve and supply most of its body and sweetness.
Sugar: Sweetens the dish and dissolves into the syrup that coats the currants.
Vinegar: Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Cinnamon: Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour throughout the syrup.