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Mussel Plum Cheese and Jelly

A preserve made from ripe plums and sugar, boiled and set into molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Mussel Plum Cheese and Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Fill large stone jars with ripe, dry, and sound plums.

  2. Place the jars in an oven that has been off for several hours, or boil them gently in water until tender.

  3. Pour the juice from the plums and strain it through a jelly bag.

Make the jelly

  1. Weigh the juice and boil it rapidly for 25 minutes.

  2. Add 3 lbs of sugar to the juice, stir until dissolved, and boil quickly for another 10 minutes, removing any scum.

  3. Pour the preserve into small molds or pans and let it set until needed.

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. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Plums
Provide the fruit, pectin and natural acidity that give the jelly its flavor and body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, with boiling, helps the juice thicken and set into a preserve.

The step that matters

Boiling the juice rapidly before adding sugar. Boiling the juice down concentrates its pectin and acid so the jelly can gel properly. Stirring until the sugar fully dissolves before the final boil keeps it from crystallising.

“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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