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Dessert

Spiced Currants

A preserved fruit made by boiling currants with sugar, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Currants

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine currants, brown sugar, vinegar, allspice, cloves, and nutmeg in a large pot.

  2. Boil the mixture for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

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.

  1. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  5. Currant + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ripe currants
Provide the fruit base and natural pectin that thickens the mixture as it cooks.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and bulk, and helps preserve the fruit while it thickens.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the fruit flavour and helps balance the sugar.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the fruit.
Cloves
Adds strong, warm aroma that deepens the spiced flavour.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Sugar and fruit can scorch on the bottom of a pot during a long boil, so regular stirring keeps the heat even and prevents burnt flavour. The mixture thickens as water evaporates and the sugar concentrates.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, allspice, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, allspice, clove, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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