Why it works: Quince and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,444 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Grape Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Extract the juice
Mash the berries to remove the skins.
Pour the mashed berries into a kettle and cook slowly for a few minutes to extract the juice.
Strain the juice through a colander, then through a flannel jelly bag, keeping it as hot as possible.
Make the jelly
Measure the juice and add 1 pound of sugar for every pint of juice.
Boil the mixture rapidly for at least 30 minutes.
Test a small amount; if it seems done, remove it and pour into glasses.
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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Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,444 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
- Berries
- Provide the juice and natural pectin that set the jelly.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and helps it set by binding water and firming the gel.
The step that matters
Boil the mixture rapidly for at least 30 minutes. The jelly must reach a high enough sugar and pectin concentration to gel. Boiling too gently or too briefly leaves it runny, while the cook must test for doneness before pouring.
“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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