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 ↓
English Guava
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Remove the stalks from the guavas and cut some of them.
Place the guavas and optional plums into stone jars.
Submerge the jars in water and boil them for 15 to 20 minutes.
Drain the juice and strain it through a thick strainer or jelly bag.
Make the jelly
Weigh the juice and boil it quickly for 15 to 20 minutes.
Stir in 3/4 pound of sugar for every pound of juice until dissolved.
Remove any scum and boil the preserve again for 8 to 12 minutes.
Check for a firm jelly consistency on a skimmer.
Set the jelly
Pour the jelly into shallow pans or small molds and let it set.
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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Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Guavas (in the method)
- Provide the main fruit flavour and the natural pectin that helps the jelly set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and helps it set firm and hold its shape.
The step that matters
Checking the jelly consistency on a skimmer. Boiling too briefly leaves the jelly runny, while boiling too long can make it stiff or cause sugar to crystallise. Testing a cooled drop on a skimmer shows when the pectin and sugar have reached a firm set.
“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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