Why it works: Sugar and red currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,156 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
To Preserve Strawberries Whole
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Layer strawberries in a large dish and sprinkle half the sugar over them.
Gently shake the dish to ensure sugar touches the undersides of the fruit.
Make the syrup and cook
The next day, make a thin syrup with the remaining sugar and red currant juice.
Simmer the strawberries in the syrup until they are sufficiently jellied.
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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Sugar + red curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,156 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Strawberries
- Provide the fruit that is cooked until it softens and sets into a jelly-like preserve.
- Refined sugar
- Draws moisture from the fruit and helps it set, while also providing sweetness and preservation.
- Red currant juice
- Adds acidity and natural pectin to help the strawberries gel into a jelly.
The step that matters
Simmering until jellied. Cooking must go far enough to concentrate the syrup and activate the pectin and acid so the fruit sets, but not so long that the strawberries break down or the sugar darkens. Stop when the syrup forms a gel as it cools.
“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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