Why it works: Sugar and white currant work together. They rank in the top 29% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 59 recipes. The science ↓
Strawberry Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove the stalks from the strawberries and weigh them.
Cook the jam
Boil the strawberries for 35 minutes, stirring constantly.
Add 3 lbs of finely beaten sugar to the strawberries and mix well off the heat.
Boil the mixture again quickly for 25 minutes.
For improved flavor, add 1 lb of white currant juice at the beginning.
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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Sugar + white curranttop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together59 recipes
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Scarlet strawberries
- Forms the bulk of the jam and supplies its main fruit flavor and body.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jam, helps it set, and helps preserve it.
- White currant juice
- Adds tartness and aroma to the jam.
The step that matters
Mixing in the sugar off the heat. Sugar should be fully dissolved into the hot strawberries before the second boil. Stirring it in off the heat helps prevent it from scorching on the bottom of the pan, and the quick reboil then sets the jam without overcooking the fruit.
“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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