Why it works: Currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓
Currant Shrub
Ingredients
Directions
Make the juice
Heat the currants until soft, then strain to obtain the juice.
Cook the syrup
In a pot, combine the quart of currant juice with 1 pound of sugar.
Boil the mixture for 15 minutes, skimming off any foam.
Bottle tightly or seal in cans.
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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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Currant juice
- Provides the tart fruit flavor and liquid base of the shrub.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps preserve the syrup once it is cooked and sealed.
The step that matters
Boiling with sugar and skimming foam. Boiling dissolves the sugar fully and drives off water, which helps the syrup keep. Skimming removes foam so the finished syrup stays clear and clean-tasting.
“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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