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Preserving Fruit

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Red currant and black currant share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 72 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Preserving Fruit

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Select fresh, sound fruit and wash it gently to remove dust.

  2. Weigh the fruit and boil it alone until it bubbles evenly.

  3. Skim off any scum that forms on the surface.

  4. Add superfine sugar to the boiling fruit and continue to boil.

  5. Test the jam by placing a small amount on a plate to see if it sets.

  6. Once set, pour the jam into sterilized jars and seal.

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. Red currant + black curranttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together72 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Red currant + white curranttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Black currant + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

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

  4. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. White currant + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together59 recipes

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

Swap the white currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (red currant, black currant, sugar):

  1. Raspberryfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. White currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red currant, black currant, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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