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
Ingredients
Directions
Stem the currants and cook them with the sugar for 20 minutes.
Dip out 2 quarts of juice and strain it through a jelly bag.
Fill your glasses with the strained juice and can the rest.
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
- Provide the fruit juice and natural pectin that gives the jelly its body and set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the juice and helps it gel when cooked with the fruit acid and pectin.
The step that matters
Straining the juice. Straining through a jelly bag without squeezing keeps the jelly clear. Pressing the bag pushes fine pulp and solids through, which makes the finished jelly cloudy.
“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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