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 ↓
Plum Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Extract the juice
Place plums in a glass pan and set it in a larger pan filled with water.
Heat the water gently until all the juice is extracted from the plums.
Strain the juice through a flannel bag.
Make the jelly
Boil the juice with an equal weight of sugar for twenty minutes.
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
- Plums
- Supply the juice, along with natural pectin and acid that help the jelly set.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and, with the fruit's pectin and acid, helps the jelly set and keep.
The step that matters
Boiling the juice with the sugar. The jelly sets only when enough water has boiled off to concentrate the sugar, pectin and acid. Boiling too briefly can leave it runny, while boiling too long can make it stiff and dull.
“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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