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 Jelly, No. 1
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Squeeze the juice from the currants, which should be picked on a dry day.
Measure the juice, then weigh out 1 pound of sugar for every pint of juice.
Cook the jelly
Boil the juice for 20 minutes, then skim it.
Add the sugar.
Set and serve
Fill your glasses.
Let it cool; it will set into a fine jelly.
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
- Currants
- Their juice supplies the main flavor, plus natural pectin and acid that help the jelly set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the juice and, with boiling, helps it thicken into a firm, spreadable gel.
The step that matters
Boiling the juice. Boiling concentrates the juice and draws out its natural pectin and acid, which together form the gel. Boil too little and the jelly stays runny; boil too long and it can set too stiff.
“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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