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To Preserve Morrello Cherries

A method for preserving ripe Morello cherries in a sugared currant juice syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and currant 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 ↓

To Preserve Morrello Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the stalks from the cherries and prick each cherry with a pin.

  2. Sprinkle part of the sugar over the cherries.

  3. Let the cherries sit for a few hours.

Make the syrup and scald the cherries

  1. Dissolve the remaining sugar in the currant juice over low heat.

  2. Add the cherries to the sugar mixture and gently scald them.

  3. Let the cherries sit overnight.

  4. Scald the cherries again.

Finish the preserve

  1. Carefully remove the cherries and boil the syrup until thick.

  2. Pour the thick syrup over the cherries.

  3. If the syrup is too thin, boil it again.

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. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Sugar and currant 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

Morello cherries
Provide the fruit, whose pricked skins let the sugar syrup penetrate.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the preserve and draws moisture out of the fruit, helping it keep.
Currant juice
Dissolves the sugar into a liquid and adds tart fruit flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup until thick. Sugar concentration determines how thick the syrup becomes and how well the preserve keeps. Boiling too briefly leaves the syrup thin and watery, so the step may need repeating, as the last instruction notes.

“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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