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Preserve

Currant Cozmia

A sweet preserve made from currants, raisins, walnuts, citrus, sugar, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Currant Cozmia

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the orange rind

  1. Boil the orange rind in 3 or 4 different waters to extract the oil.

Make the preserve

  1. Combine currants, sugar, raisins, walnuts, lemon rind, orange rind, lemon juice, and orange juice in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture until it thickens to a preserve-like consistency.

  3. When nearly done, add a dash of brandy.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Walnut + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Currants
Provide the main fruit body and tart flavor that the preserve is built on.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, as it concentrates, helps it thicken and keep.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to the preserve.
English walnuts
Add crunchy texture and a rich, slightly bitter nutty flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and supports setting.

The step that matters

Boil until preserve-like consistency. Pectin and sugar set only as water evaporates and the mixture concentrates. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while overcooking makes it stiff and may scorch the sugar on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (currant, sugar, raisin, lemon, orange, brandy):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, sugar, raisin, lemon, orange, brandy. 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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